


Weight of Shadows

by ktbl



Category: Mortal Kombat (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Body Worship, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fights, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Human Trafficking, Johnny Cage Plays A Minor Role, Kissing, Morning Sex, Outworld (Mortal Kombat), Scars, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Stakeout, Suit Kink, Tattoos, This Is Getting Complicated, Touch-Starved, Vera Doesn't Get Enough Time, Yakuza
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:07:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 62,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24453394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktbl/pseuds/ktbl
Summary: A branch of one of the Japanese yakuza syndicates is extending its grasp into LA, and their involvement with the Black Dragon sets OIA's obsessive Sonya Blade on their case. Before the Mortal Kombat tournaments and the Outerworld Investigation Agency, Sonya committed herself to eradicating the Black Dragon. Now, she - along with Kurtis Stryker, Jax Briggs, and Takahashi Kenshi - find themselves confronted with a series of trade arrangements and schemes that crosses international - and possibly interdimensional - borders.-An AU inspired by some very old school MK lore, and one possible reason a certain blind telepathic swordsman keeps himself so comprehensively concealed.-
Relationships: Jackson "Jax" Briggs & Sonya Blade, Jackson "Jax" Briggs/Vera Briggs, Kurtis Stryker & Sonya Blade, Sonya Blade & Vera Briggs, Sonya Blade/Takahashi Kenshi
Comments: 40
Kudos: 18





	1. Lay of the Land

**Author's Note:**

> There are some tags not relevant for the first few chapters, but to be fair to readers I want to set expectations early. There will be explicit sex, explicit violence, and some nasty topics like human trafficking, and I'll tag those chapters at the beginning so people can skip right over them.

Sonya felt the phone in her pocket vibrate, and pulled it out without a second thought as she lifted the shot glass full of paleclear alcohol to her mouth. She slammed the shot down, the bright tastes of peppermint schnapps and cinnamon whiskey curling spicy-sweet down her throat, and set the glass on the table. She wiped an errant droplet of liquor from the corner of her lips and sucked it off her fingertip.

“God, what I wouldn’t give to be that booze,” quipped Johnny Cage from across their table at the bar.

“Found this in my pocket for you, Cage.” She flipped the actor a middle finger as she looked at the call display and ignored his indignant expression. “I need to take this.” She pushed back out of her chair, brushing against the shoulder of Takahashi Kenshi as she did. “It’s work.” The swordsman tilted his head up at her, expression inscrutable behind his sunglasses.

“Everything all right?”

“Not sure. It’s Jax, so.” She shrugged, and then placed a hand on Kenshi’s jacketed shoulder and squeezed it lightly in lieu of eye contact. “Seventy-five percent chance it’s something I have to deal with, twenty percent he’s just giving me a hard time about something. Five percent it’s something for the rest of you.”

“All work and no play makes Major Blade a dull girl,” Johnny teased again, and she flipped him another middle finger.

“Let us know if we need to go back,” Kurtis Stryker said from across the table. Sonya shared a brief look with him - they were both ready to escape drinking with Cage, ally though he was. How Kenshi managed entire weekends with him, what their friendship was founded upon, she’d never understand. Blind man and Hollywood actor - it sounded like the pitch for one of Cage’s particularly cringeworthy movies.

“Copy,” she said, sliding her finger across the screen and pressing the phone to her ear. “Blade.” She wove her way through the crowd towards the front of the bar, aiming for the doorway and a marginally quieter atmosphere.

“Happy early birthday.” Lieutenant Colonel Jackson Briggs’ voice carried loud and clear through the phone line. “Hate to wreck your - what was it? Team building? But I know you’d kill me if I didn’t tell you about this.”

“Is it Kano?”

“It disturbs me on a fundamental level how hopeful you sound,” the man replied. “Not Kano, exactly. Or at least not yet. It’s Black Dragon, though. Local PD passed some intel along to us. Deal going down, trade of goods - exactly what, they don’t know - with some second party. But it’s Black Dragon, and before we were OIA...”

“We were US Army Special Forces and a Black Dragon task force,” she finished, still tasting the peppermint-cinnamon coating her mouth. She pushed open the door and felt a wall of California summer humidity slam into her. It was quieter outside, but that was all it had going for it. “I want it, all the details you can give me and then some. Where, when, what do I have to do.”

“I figured. I’m waiting for them to send over more details, and I’ll forward you the little I’ve got right now. You’ve got to get yourself backup, though. Not letting you run this solo. You need a-”

“Do not fucking say I need a babysitter.” He didn’t reply, and she made a scoffing noise. “Why, you volunteering?” She dropped onto a bench outside the bar, looking blankly into the parking lot.

“Figured I’d monitor the daylight side of things, since the meet’s supposed to go down at about midnight, but who knows what they’ll do beforehand, or if things change. There’s a three-day range for it, starting in - well, tomorrow night. Get a video feed, some directional mikes, decent surveillance in place, and leave you and your sleepover buddy of choice to run the night shift.” Jax let out a half-laugh. “You all still down at the bar?”

“You were invited,” she pointed out, “and at least one of us needs to show.”

“I was trying to get ahead on paperwork, Major. I’ve got plans for tomorrow.” She could hear the grin in his voice, the wide one that would split his face and crinkle his eyes. “But for you, I’d almost turn down a date with Vera. Almost.”

“Hah!” Sonya slapped her hand down on the edge of the bench. “I knew it. When did you finally ask her out?”

“Nothing formal, yet. Just catching up, celebrating her getting that doctorate. Tomorrow’s supposed to be dinner at that good Caribbean place down the road. Took me couple of weeks to get a reservation, not gonna ruin your fun, and lose my date. I’ll pull the day surveillance if you can get gear in place.”

“Done.” She twisted her ponytail around in her hand as she considered her options. “Is it conclusive?”

“As conclusive as we’re going to get without actually reading someone’s mind. And trust me, I’ve thought about asking the boys in blue to let Kenshi in there and let him turn the guy’s mind over and inside-out, but I don’t want to abuse that yet.”

She nibbled on her lower lip. “Point.”

“You’re going to need to stop drinking,” Jax added, “and get back here to give me a list of supplies and look over the maps and intel itself. My PD contact implied they have a safe house or a place nearby that we can use for surveilling, but it’s not pretty and fancy. Had a few choice words to say about alphabet agencies using their spots.”

Sonya snorted, and ran her fingers through her hair. “Well, we didn’t exactly ask for the OIA, we just pitched the biggest fit and it was easier than us saying I told you so.”

“Which you were doing loudly, anyway.”

She decided not to dignify that with a response; they both knew any denial would have been a bald-faced lie. “Well, I’m here with Takahashi, Stryker, and Cage. Stryker’s my first choice, so I’ll toss it to him first.”

“Not Cage?” There was a pause, and then a laugh. “I can tell you’re tryin’ to kill me with your mind from here, Sonya.”

“If I can’t get him, maybe Cyrax,” she ventured. “Nothing scares the shit out of Black Dragon thugs like a cyber ninja they’re not expecting. He even in town?”

“He’s not, so you’re out of luck there.”

“Alright.” She rose off the bench. “I’ll see if I can dangle the potential of Kabal in front of Stryker, that should make him bite.”

“Damn,” Jax swore with a bit of a laugh, “you’re as bad as I am.”

“I learned from my CO. I’ll be back onsite in about half an hour, and we’ll see who I have in tow.”

“Try to keep the body count low. I know it’s wishful thinking and all, but…”

“I promise I will not interrupt your date with a body count. I’ll file a report and you can interrogate me the morning after. I’ll have to get all the gossip from Vera, anyway,” she said smugly. She could picture him shaking his head on the other side of the phone, the curve of his mouth in an almost incredulous smile.

“Ninety-five percent of the time you’re all business, and then five percent of the time you remind me there’s a human woman under there.”

“Ninety percent of the time it doesn’t matter.” She shrugged. “The only times it matters when I work is what body armor I have, and what my uniform looks like for formal events. Whether I have tits or not doesn’t affect the work I do. But I know you, so I gotta be able to hear the stories from Vera to know if you’re bullshitting her or not.”

“Almost sounds like you like her more than me.”

“Who says I don’t?” She heard his laugh on the other end. “Back in thirty or so. Blade out.”

“Briggs out.”

She wove her way back through the crowd, bending back one wandering hand that got too close to her ass for personal preference.The uptempo music throbbing along with her excited heartbeat. Not much had changed at the table they had been occupying; Johnny had a lapful of redhead, which did not particularly surprise her. She was just grateful he’d started to ooze bad pickup lines at someone else. She touched Kenshi’s shoulder gently with one hand as she stood behind her chair, rather than sitting down again. “Stryker, got a possible op you might want in on.” She tried to keep her voice neutral, but couldn’t keep the tiny pull of a smile from the corner of her mouth no matter how hard she tried. “Gotta leave now, and requires an overnight commitment for three nights.”

Johnny made a string of wordless noises of disbelief, and Sonya was proud she managed to keep a straight face. Kenshi’s shoulder shook under her hand with silent laughter, and Johnny’s hand stilled high on the redhead’s thigh, but Sonya’s eyes were on the stocky ex-SWAT officer. She glanced once at the redhead, and then back to Stryker.

“What I think it is?”

“Name the one thing that will get me to drop everything. That isn’t,” she added quickly, “the Netherrealm or Outworld.” She kept her eyes on Stryker, the way he tightened his jaw and the corded muscle of his neck and shoulders went taut, the way his eyes almost seemed to go bright at the prospect.

“Sold.” Stryker slapped a hand on the table and levered himself up out of the chair, much as she’d hoped. “Kenshi, I know I said I’d bring you back-“

“I feel like this may be a more interesting end to the evening,” the swordsman said easily, turning his face towards Johnny and his newest interest. Sonya dropped her hand off Kenshi’s shoulder at the motion, a bit surprised at her own temerity in keeping contact with him so long.

“Hey, guys, I’ll come along too-“ The actor seemed less distracted than she’d expected - maybe it was being abandoned suddenly by his three drinking companions.

“No, don’t worry. You’re clearly - busy.” Sonya let a smirk play across her face. “This is our job, anyway. But Kenshi,” she added, looking down to him, “you don’t need to come back if you don’t want to.”

“I will join you and Stryker. If nothing else, only to get one of you to drive me back to my apartment.” He chuckled softly and she snorted, clapping him on the shoulder again.

“Alright. Let’s move out.” She reached into a pocket, pulling out her wallet and dropping a bill onto the slightly sticky table. “Drinks on the OIA. I’ll expense it.”

Maps and photographs lay scattered across the table in the otherwise bland meeting room, and Sonya was busy staring at them. Stryker hadn’t sat down yet - not that she’d entirely expected him to, anyway. He always liked to survey the territory, and she never felt more like a bug under a microscope than when she was around Kurtis Stryker. It didn’t matter that he was quasi-military, one of the multitude of ambiguous agents and contractors that the OIA retained. She inevitably felt like she was being judged, held up to a high standard, and he’d never hesitate to tell her if he found her wanting. Kenshi had seated himself at one end of the table, out of the way of the other two, listening intently.

Stryker paused his pacing around the table. “So this is the layout?”

“What we’ve got, yeah. I haven’t gone in for personal recon yet, obviously.” She reached over and fanned out several photographs. He leaned over her shoulder to peer at them, a bloom of warmth behind her. She raised an eyebrow, and pushed them over to the seat next to her. “This is an old satellite image, but there hasn’t been any construction on the area recently. Warehouse here, mixed office space here. Hoping to take a drive by tonight and see how busy it is, if there’s a chance-“

“Of a sniper’s nest?” He sat down in the chair at last, looking over the photographs and the report. “What are you thinking?”

“Gear up and get in there as soon as possible. Set up some mikes and video feeds, here and here and here, and then get someone to monitor them during the day while I sleep.” She pointed to a few points on the map.

“We sleep,” he corrected. “I already know how you operate. You-“

“Do not need a babysitter, Stryker. You and Jax been drafting the Sonya Blade playbook?”

“If someone made one, we’d have an agency copy all highlighted and marked up. Top page insert with ‘Keep her away from the Black Dragon’ in caps and size eighty font and a reminder every couple of pages.” He looked at the places on the map she’d tapped. “What about video here and here, audio here?”

“Like you’re much better, when Kabal went over to them,” she said acidly.

“Don’t get me started. So - standard op, just going to go in and observe and get someone to tail them, or what are you thinking?”

“If any of the top dogs show up, we need to take them out. No word on if Kano will be there, but between him, Jarek, Kabal, and Tasia… And not knowing who the recipients are…”

“Copy that. We’re possibly the worst possible choice to pair for this.” He chuckled once and frowned, considering. “One way around that, though.”

“What’s that look for?” Sonya quirked a brow.

“Let’s split this up a little, actually.” He leaned over the table and began sorting things, poking at two points on a map. “I’ll sit in a van and monitor the feeds. The two of you can be in place in the apartment or office or whatever it is the PD has. That way we have wheels if we need them to tail someone, and we’ve got everything split between the two in case someone gets wind or one side slips up.” Stryker’s usually mobile face went flat with determination. He was bullish when it came to Kabal and the Black Dragon, but he was better at playing the long game than she was. But Kabal had only defected from NYPD - if he’d ever really been a part of it. And Kano… well.

Kano had killed her partner, helped get Jax kidnapped, roped Sonya into the first Mortal Kombat tournament, and given Johnny Cage the perpetual bragging right of having rescued her. She had a list of complaints against him and could rail for hours - but Stryker, somehow, never quite had the same heat when the Black Dragons came up as she did. He thought of things in terms of fairness, of justice.

She just got angry and held grudges.

“The two of you?” She raised a brow. “You decide not to come along?”

“Yeah. You and Takahashi.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the swordsman, who leaned forward in his chair at the sound of his name.

“And you don’t think a blind man doing surveillance work is a bit ironic?” Kenshi’s voice held an undertone of self-deprecating amusement, and she could see his forehead wrinkle as he arched an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Having a telepath would be a good call,” Sonya agreed, hooking a foot around her padded metal chair. “You’ll know if anyone else is out lurking around, right? And if things are going to hit the fan they’ll probably be thinking it before they give physical cues, so we can have a faster response rate.”

“And the fact that I will not be able to see any of them does not bother you?” He seemed oddly surprised by ease with which she accepted the proposal.

“We’ve watched you take out two guys in one blow with your magic sword. Combat preparedness isn’t an issue. Sonya will be pulling most of the heavy lifting on monitoring, you’re just an ace in the hole.”

“Get me a sniper rifle and we get a decent position and I can take one of them out, if needed, before we drop in. Or take a leg or shoulder shot and confuse them long enough to get the drop, literally.” She looked over at Kenshi. “And you and I both know how to fight, really fight. So it’s not like I’m taking some untrained civilian in. You think you’re up for being stuck in - an office, I think it is - for three days, with me?”

“Will there be hazard pay?”

“Fuck you,” she swore, laughing a little. Even Stryker chuckled. “And I can say on good authority that yes, this bullshit comes with extra money.”

“I can think of worse ways to spend three days.”

“Man, I do not know what kind of things you got up to that three days with her seems like a walk in the park.“ Stryker grunted at the fleshy impact of a punch in his side. “Well, Central Park, maybe. You’re making my point for me, Sonya.”

“I’ll take sitting quietly in a room with her,” Kenshi said, “over being trapped in a van with no freedom to move. And surely she can’t be worse than an oni.”

“There’s only one way to find out.”

The way Kenshi smiled at her seemed like he was more than willing to step up to the challenge, and she briefly wondered if she’d bitten off more than she could chew.

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.


	2. Seven Devils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stakeout goes awry.

The first night was when it all began to fall apart, a fact Sonya did not recognize until long after. She was satisfied with their position, a second-floor office with a half-broken window that allowed for airflow and a sniper’s nest, made difficult to see into with a garbage bag and battered curtains. She hoped it still looked sufficiently abandoned. The night was hot and humid, the air frustratingly thick and still. Once, she would have given anything for a thunderstorm to clear the atmosphere. Now, they reminded her too much of Raiden; he and his storms could stay far away. The joy she’d had in violent weather had waned.

She and Kenshi spent the evening in an easy quiet. Sonya kept boredom at bay with her OIA administrative responsibilities on her laptop, an eye on the video feeds and the headphones slanted loose on her ears in case something of note crackled through. The room became increasingly stuffy; Sonya shed her jacket, sitting on her sleeping bag in her tank top and staring at the dimmed laptop screen. She felt a touch on her shoulder and looked up as Kenshi jerked his half-gloved hand back as if she’d burned him. He stayed fully armored, and she was sure he must be melting beneath the thick bodysuit and armored plates.

“Apologies, I did not realize you were-“

“I’m still dressed,” she interrupted, catching sight of the faintest flush on his usually composed face. “Just minus my jacket. I run hot; there’s no point in extra layers while we’re in here. I’m not stupid enough to get naked on the clock. And it’s not like you were copping a feel.” She pressed her lips together. “Is there a problem? Pick something up?”

He shook his head. “No, all is quiet. There is, however, something I think we should discuss.”

She set the laptop aside, giving him her undivided attention. “This where you tell me you’re a mole in my organization and I have to put you down?”

“Hardly. Raiden and Fujin would not have allowed this to go on if I was, would it?” She made a soft noise of agreement, eyes on him, picking up the tension in his arms, the way his shoulders were pushed back, as though he expected a blow or argument. “There is something about my past which I feel may be… prudent to share with you now.”

“Does it need to be now, or can confessions wait until after we’re done with this? Because trust me - I’d very much like to get an idea of the guy under all that Kevlar and leather and metal, but this isn’t the best time. You’re secretive as hell, but I can’t add something else to my plate right now. Unless you’re confessing you were Black Dragon or one of Shang Tsung’s goons. Or an accountant. Can’t fucking tolerate them.” She reached over and touched his fingertips with her own, squeezing lightly. “Save your stress, Kenshi. If it’s kept this long, it can keep til this op is done. Then as long as we both make it out, you can bare your soul, or whatever it is.” She pulled her hand back, and poked him in the chest. “As long as you’re not a Black Dragon mole - or an accountant - I’m pretty sure we’re fine.”

“I am not a spy,” he said firmly. “I am beholden to no one save the OIA, and Earthrealm’s best interests.”

“I notice you’re not saying anything about being in finances. It can keep, unless you really believe it can’t.”

If she felt the rest of the night throbbed with frustration and tension, Sonya simply attributed it to close quarters, bad weather, and a need to remain alert.

As the clock ticked towards midnight on the second night, Sonya sent silent thanks to the inventors of directional microphones and night vision goggles. Kenshi sat on the floor, Sento unsheathed and balanced on his lap.

“Anything?” Her voice was quiet; if anything, things had gotten more humid and the air more stale since the night before. If this went into three nights, she might in fact lose her mind.

“No minds aside from ours that have stayed for more than five or ten minutes.” He paused. “Well, that’s not entirely true. There were a pair of teenagers who were taking advantage of the alley, but their intent was fairly straightforward and I decided not to intrude.”

“Not a voyeur, then?” Sonya took a drink from her canteen and traced a shape in the dust on the floor.

“I am uninterested in teenage pawing.” He stood up, laying Sento down atop his sleeping bag on the floor, and stretched. “I think they were also more interested in shooting up than in sex.” She made an annoyed sound, cursing quietly. “But they were not paying attention to anything beyond each other and the drugs at hand, so I did not bring it to your attention.” He began to move through what she guessed was a tai chi routine, careful to remain out of sight of the half-patched window.

Sonya glanced at her laptop, adjusting the headphone on her ear. “Next time - if there is a next time - let me know anytime someone’s here for more than five minutes, would you? Even if they’re only looking to score some drugs or get laid.”

“Understood.”

She leaned back against the wall, sneezing once as she dislodged dust. Kenshi was unfazed, continuing to move slowly and evenly through his motions. She checked the video feeds and frowned slightly. She reached up to her radio earpiece, depressing the link that would connect her to Stryker and Pierce in the observation van a couple of blocks down. Just far enough to gun it if they needed help, but not to be directly in the line of observation for the meet.

“Hold up… I think we’ve got something,” she murmured softly. “Van, coming in slow to the parking lot.”

Kenshi paused his movements, dropping into a crouch and collecting Sento once more. “I have them. Three - no, four. Black Dragon.” She was sure he couldn’t mistake the way she sucked her breath in through her teeth, the sudden increase of her heart rate. “They’re early, or they think they are. They have three crates for transfer. And no - none of them are Kano, or Kabal.”

Sonya felt a little twinge of disappointment. She shifted her equipment and spoke into her earpiece. “Panther to base. Got ‘em. Party’s starting.”

“Base copy,” came the New York tones of Kurtis Stryker. “Count?”

“Four,” she responded. “Neither of ‘em are our primary or secondary targets, sounds like garden variety goons.” Kenshi put a hand on her shoulder and signaled for her to wait, and she looked back to the video feed as another vehicle arrived. “Hold up - another car coming in.” She glanced to Kenshi, and he held up three fingers. “Three. Total of seven.”

“We tailing them, or are you going to be impulsive and reckless?” Stryker paused, and she could envision him hanging his head. “Never mind, I already know the answer. How the hell did you manage to head the OIA?”

“Jax is technically the boss.”

“Technically. What do you want us to do?”

“Stay where you are, for now. If either vehicle leaves, tail them - Dragons first.” As if there were any other choice. “Don’t want to drop in unless we have to, but we’re ready. You’ll know if we need to by the video feed.”

“I have this strange feeling we aren’t going to tail anyone,” Stryker reiterated.

“Hey, you’re the one who put himself in a van. Could have used you up here to take the shot.”

“Two days with you in a small room? Next time.” They shared a short, brief laugh, with the barest hint of nerves. “We’ll keep an eye on things. Base out.”

“Panther out.” Sonya brushed Kenshi’s forearm with her fingertips. “Let me know if anything changes while I get set up.” Her voice was cool and clipped, not waiting for acknowledgement. She picked up the rifle beside her and checked it over before settling it into its meticulously prepared position. She nudged the muzzle into an open space of the bag-covered window and peered through the chunky thermal night sight. She made a few adjustment; satisfied, she turned back to the laptop and headphones.

Kenshi settled next to her in a comfortable crouch, feet flat on the floor and Sento sheathed on his back. “Three minds,” he murmured, close enough she could feel his breath on her ear. “They’ve paid for weaponry for their family. Guns and things they cannot get at home. One is thinking of the next step - from here to a cargo container at the port, and then to Hawaii.” He spread a hand on her leg, as if for balance or support. “It is hard to keep track of all of them. What do you want me to do?”

“Focus on the… shit,” she swore quietly. “I want it all, is that too much to ask? Focus on the Black Dragon, I’m going to see what the mike picks up when they start talking. We’ll get the others later, but I want the Dragons.” Kenshi made a noncommittal sound, and Sonya tilted her head slightly, holding the headphone to her ear and focusing on the video feeds.

It wasn’t the clearest, but she knew it was the best they’d been able to manage, and night vision at least gave an accurate count and location of bodies. She could hear two sets of voices, one speaking a language she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t Spanish - that’s all she was sure of. She tried to focus on the Black Dragons, tune out the others.

“… We arranged for a cash trade.”

“And once the goods are verified, it will be. We are not foolish enough to accept it without checking.” A clipped, precise voice, though it struggled with the ‘r’s and ‘l’s - definitely not a native English speaker.

“Look, your boss and our boss-“

“Even Kano would not be so stupid.”

Snorting laughter followed that statement. “You know Kano? How the fuck-?”

“We have had dealings with him before. Here is the sum agreed upon.” A sound, barely audible, of a popping lock or clip. “Now, the cases.”

“Shit,” Sonya heard Stryker’s voice over her earpiece. “They just waved a red flag in front of our bull.”

“I am not a bull,” Sonya snarled, depressing the button on her earpiece. “Stryker, we’re going hot. If we need to engage, you’ll know when it happens.” She looked over to Kenshi. “If this goes badly, I’ll try to catch them by surprise, get one with a bullet. I will wait until one side or another engages, however.”

“Would you be offended if I… borrowed the bullet?”

She could have kissed him for not commenting about Kano, not being a smartass. Instead, she gave him an incredulous look. “As long as it takes these guys down, do whatever you want. Maybe try to leave us one to question.”

She couldn’t mistake the satisfaction on the man’s face. She blanked out the thought and settled herself down behind the rifle. She was a passable markswoman, though she’d take pistols over being a sniper any day. Stryker really should have been up here. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Focusing her breaths, she peered through the sight, and gauged the new situation, followed the blooms of warmth, kept her eyes on the ones pointedly not carrying cases back away towards an idling vehicle. She lined up her shot on one of the figures - she assumed it was Black Dragon, who was reaching for something at their side.

She spoke softly. “Once I shoot, I’m going through that door. Get yourself ready to open it and go as soon as I pull. Copy?”

“Loud and clear.”

She saw the figure - it was bulky and near the big van the Dragon arrived in - raise its arm in a firing position, ready to throw their own deal awry. Cash and getting to re-sell the guns? It was ideal - especially if they could blame it on a third party and exculpate themselves.

“He’s going to shoot to kill,” Kenshi said from beside the door. She grunted an acknowledgement, felt the press of the floor on her body, senses ratcheting up at his words.

“They’re gonna be playing our song in three… two…” Sonya took a deep inhale, feeling her chest swell. She cleared her mind, checked her range and target, and a heartbeat after she heard the report of a revolver, exhaled and squeezed the trigger with a lover’s touch. She watched the figure crumple to the ground and felt the warm curl of satisfaction snake through her body. The door squeaked as it opened onto the fire escape, and then she dropped the rifle and bounded up, lunging for the door and flinging herself off the fire escape.

Sonya dropped onto the ground in a fall that she had done dozens of times before, grunting heavily at the impact. Jagged edges of gravel dug into her thighs and ass as she rolled through the points of contact that she’d endlessly drilled in. She hopped up onto her feet and immediately settled into a low ready stance, gauging what had happened in the seconds between her shot and her landing. The one thug she’d shot was down, and if he was breathing, she couldn’t tell. There were two other men down, limbs akimbo in a way that suggested they wouldn’t be walking any time soon. One of them wore a suit, the other a jacket with the Black Dragon. The rest were frozen in place, illuminated by the headlights of the two vehicles and the flickering moth-covered lights of the back lot behind the building.

She spared a look to one side, located the bright blue light of Kenshi’s telekinesis slamming one of the more thuggish looking men into a wall. He was doing just fine.

A slim man with the Black Dragon logo on his vest let out a low shout. He lunged forward, gravel crunching and spraying outwards with every footfall. He barreled towards her, kicking out with a heavy boot at her face.

“Wasn’t expecting you,” he snarled. She caught his foot in one hand and put her other on his leg and twisted, pushing him off-balance and away from her. He was fast - faster than she expected - and stumbled, fell, and got back up almost as quickly as she could. She frowned, dodging a punch that came close enough she could feel the rush of air past her ear, blocked another kick, and quickly adjusted her expectations of this brawl.

“Where’s Kano?” She snarled, lashing out with a foot, landing it hard in the man’s gut, and then extending upwards and catching his jaw with the toe of her boot. His head snapped backwards and he stumbled away, giving her a moment of breathing room.

It wasn’t enough.

“Shoulda known you’d show up. He’s not here, not where we figured you’d be snooping around. Don’t need him to take you out, Soldier Barbie.” He closed in again, a knife flashing in the light and slashing down hard and fast towards her neck and chest. She thought she heard Stryker’s voice calling a warning in her ear, but it sounded so far away that she wasn’t certain it could be the radio. She dodged one of the Dragon’s thrusts towards her, ducking and weaving and trying to keep out of his range. He was long-limbed and fast, and familiar with the knife - but he _wasn’t_ Kano, no matter how much he thought he could be. She could take him down. He angled the heavy knife and slashed at her shoulder. The sound of her jacket as it ripped was as loud as the pounding of her heart in her ears. She pivoted around, danced around him as they exchanged blows, blocks, and outright evasions, until he stood with his face turned into the van’s headlights. The man narrowed his eyes against the light and struck at her again. With the lighting in her favor and his wild strike, she was able to come up on the outside of his arm, bending it back roughly. There was a snapping sound; she guessed she’d broken some part of it, and that was good enough for her.

He thrashed, trying to knock her off, and she twisted herself up onto his body rapidly and roughly. Once she could get her legs around his neck, he was as good as gone. There was the snapping sound she loved to hear, the sudden limpness as his body dropped and took her down with it.

She rolled away from the body and looked around to see how the battlefield had changed. She was still just long enough to feel an impact and arms twisting around her in a hideous mockery of a lover’s embrace. She tried to free herself, but was caught up thoroughly, arms restrained and twisted painfully back. She turned her head and looked up to see one of the men in suits. He’d put her in a solid armlock. A sneer cut across his flushed face. Abruptly she had the sensation of movement as she was half-dragged half-carried towards one of the concrete walls. She grunted and lashed out with her legs, trying to hook one of her feet around him impair his movement. She flailed wildly but succeeded - just in time to hit the wall not quite at full speed and with his body weight behind her. She tumbled away and down to the ground, the wind knocked out of her.

“Fuck,” she swore loudly as her shoulder and ribs protested loudly. Her vision blurred and she could feel her muscles screaming despite the rush of adrenaline. Her vision cleared just as the big man was already on his feet, one meaty hand reaching to gather her jacket in his fist and lift her up. Suddenly his hand loosened, and his face looked startled. Her eyes hooked onto the blue-edged sword caught into her opponent’s ribs.

She could only watch with a sort of detached admiration as the sword withdrew in a wrench, spattering blood onto the ground and across Sonya. The blade appeared again, taking off the man’s arm just below the elbow. The man let out a guttural yell as blood spurted from the stump, soaking the gravel and spraying out towards her. Sonya rolled away in time to see Kenshi adjust his grip and stance one final time - and slammed his foot into the man’s back, knocking him face-first into the ground. She rolled back, slamming her knee into his face and hearing the resounding crunch of bone.

“Black Dragon down,” Sonya panted, looking at Kenshi. He nodded, holding Sento in one hand. “We have to get the other guys, the goods.”

“And we have a problem.” He twisted his hands, sending Sento flying down towards the car still idling in the lot. The last of the suited men was running for it, or trying to; he’d apparently taken some injuries that made his gait lurch and wobble. The sword missed the man as he flung himself into the driver’s seat. The sound of screaming metal pierced the air as Sento thrust itself into one door, carving a mark down the side of the car as it peeled out of the lot, and then the blade dropped to the ground.

“Shit,” Sonya swore, reaching for her earpiece and speaking into the radio connection. “Stryker, we’ve got a problem.”She heard the heavy sound of two bodies connecting, and a pained noise behind her. “Make that two.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the helpful comments so far! I'm enjoying working on this, and the feedback is helping me adjust how I address certain elements of the story. This fight scene was brought to you by Florence & The Machine, specifically "Seven Devils".


	3. After Action

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Problem resolution turns out to only create more problems when the OIA finally get their hands on the Black Dragon goods. Sonya is also arguably bad at gift-giving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So - Kenshi is essentially early MKX Kenshi, Sonya is apparently the costume/feel of the Shaolin Monks version but some of the Scorpion’s Revenge Sonya in attitude. Jax is (more or less) MK11 Throwback Jax, Stryker is MK Legacy Tahmoh Penikett. 
> 
> We’re all over the place, but this is an AU, so.

“Problem looks like a bit of an understatement.” Stryker’s voice was loud in her earpiece as she spun around, the world now operating in slow motion. “This I can handle. In pursuit. We’ll get this sonnuvabitch.”

Behind her, the Black Dragon she’d thought down and out after Kenshi slammed him into a wall was definitely neither down nor out. The gangster had slunk up and put her latest partner into a chokehold. Without Sento, Kenshi’s telekinesis was gone. He was far more vulnerable. She felt another jolt of adrenaline kick in and dropped down, sweeping out a leg into his as hard as she could despite her screaming ribs. It caught the Black Dragon unaware, and Kenshi intentionally went limp as they both dropped onto the ground. The swordsman rolled away, and the Black Dragon rose in visible pain. Sonya lashed out with her boot, landing a hard blow on his kneecap. The man let out a pained shout and staggered back. A moment later there was a flare of blue around his head, and he abruptly stilled, crumpling into a heap.

“You kill him?” Sonya looked over at Kenshi, hands on her thighs as she hunched over slightly and tried to catch her breath.

“No. I overwhelmed his mind.” Kenshi jerked his chin towards the man on the ground. “It should incapacitate him long enough to get him taken back for questioning.”

“Good man. You have more restraint than I do.”

“Your prejudice is well known.”

“Don’t mind being predictable when it comes to these assholes.” She spoke into her earpiece again. “We’ll start cleanup here. Someone get me a van and some body bags when you’re done playing tag. Blade out.” 

Sonya reached a hand to one side of the thug’s neck, finding a pulse. Satisfied, she pulled out her garrote cord and use it to bind him up in a rough hogtie. It wasn’t perfect, but it would keep him occupied. If he woke up they should hear him struggling. She rose up, and then headed immediately to a wall and slumped against it, tilting her head back and gulping in air. “That’ll put a wrench in their plans. I need a minute and then I need to see if I can get into those cases, see what they were after. Frisk someone for a key.”

“Firearms, I think.” Kenshi leaned against the wall beside her, breathing heavily. He made a pulling gesture, and suddenly Sento hung loose and easy in his hand, the blade still faintly blue in the darkness.

“Who was the other end of it? I didn’t catch it. They were speaking something I didn’t follow.”

“Japanese. I think they are-“ he paused and corrected himself, “were gokudo, from the minds. No names, though. Just a route to the docks, then the idea of California to Hawaii to Japan. Our new friend should be able to tell us more.”

“Gokudo?”

“Yakuza.”

Sonya groaned. “Do I attract crime syndicates or something? Why do I have such spectacularly shitty luck? Cults I have training in, but this is just…” She threw her hands up in annoyance. “There are times when just a straightforward assault on some Tarkatans or Shokan or whatever Mileena’s up to would be more comprehensible to me than organized crime. A nice, easy cult… That would be a change.”

“There must be something about you. And you probably should have reconsidered something called the Outerworld Investigation Agency, if all you wanted was ‘a nice cult’.”

“Right. They just can’t resist me coming after them to snap their necks with my thighs.” She looked at him sidelong. “That said, I have to say, having you on this was a good call,” she said, almost grudgingly. “Thanks for being willing to do it.”

“I do not turn down a challenge.” His voice was lower than it usually was, and she frowned.

“Yeah, well, I owe you for saving my life and all.” She pushed off the wall and turned to face him. “How bad he get you in the throat? Would have thought all that padding would have saved your ass. Let me see.” She reached up towards him, and her fingers brushed across the bare skin of his neck, trying to check for the nascent signs of bruising. The muscle went taut beneath her fingers, and she angled him slightly to catch more of the light.

“Sonya…” His voice was definitely rougher than usual. She didn’t like that. He was already blind, and if he had damage to his vocal cords, communication would become an absolute pain in the ass. She glanced up at him and out of nowhere he had a hand on the side of her face, fingertips gently grazing her skin. She tried to take a step back - or at least she briefly considered it, but her body had other ideas. It was giddy with the rush of adrenaline, the general success of the operation, the gratefulness of being alive. It liked where it was very much, almost rooted into the gravel in front of him. His fingers brushed across her cheek once more, light as moth’s feet, and she wasn’t sure who leaned in first.

Their mouths crashed against each other, meeting halfway. The kiss was rough and fast and disregarded anything resembling professional conduct. Their bodies shared a mutual interest; they wanted to revel in still being upright, still having a pulse to pound, breath to go ragged. She felt one of his hands catch the front of her jacket to bring her closer, and she threw one hand up on the wall beside his head to hold her as she leaned in. The soft, hot touch of his lips drove professional conduct straight out of her head in favor of the impulsive celebration of having made it out of that shit-show _alive alive alive alive_ , lizard-brain chorusing with joy. She pulled back farther than she wanted to, but not as far enough as good judgment demanded.

“I would have been cooling on the ground with the rest of them, if not for you. Thanks.” Her heavy breathing was no longer something she could entirely blame on the fight.

“You would have managed. I simply ended it faster.” His hand didn’t move from her jacket, and in fact seemed to gather slightly more fabric, securing her in his grip. “You’ve done the same for me. You did, in fact.”

“Never would have heard the end of it if something happened to you on my watch. Can’t afford to be responsible for losing a valuable asset.” She shifted her stance. If it widened a little so she could plant her feet on either side of one of his legs, well - that was just convenience. His nostrils flared as if breathing her in, and tugged her forward, kissing her again. The pressure of his lips was soft but determined, and she opened her mouth willingly, her other hand finding purchase on the wall as she leaned forward, straddling his leg. Her ribs hurt - they were really starting to hurt, if she let herself think about it - but this was a lot better than thinking about bruises. She was also certain his heart was pounding as hard as hers.

“Got the car, lost him.” Stryker’s voice was loud over the radio earpieces. They both jerked apart, Kenshi’s head smacking into the wall and Sonya stumbling back, almost tripping herself on his feet. Like a pair of teenagers. No, worse than that. Unprofessional. She shook her head and was pretty sure she felt her cheeks reddening.

“Copy.” She held her finger to the earpiece. “Coming back?”

“Yes. Regroup, see what you’ve got in terms of casualties, start on the clean up.”

“Well, we’re not going anywhere. Kenshi got you a souvenir. Blade out.”

Sonya looked across at Kenshi. He’d turned his head down as if to look at his fingertips, and then he cleared his throat. He turned his head up again, and she felt pinned by eyes she could not see. “We seem to be getting interrupted. And there are several things we should continue. To discuss.”

“We’ll get to them all, I’m sure,” she answered flippantly. “There’s going to be a hell of a lot of paperwork after this. I’ll be living in my office for the next week.”

He reached a hand out, let it rest on her shoulder, and then stopped when he heard her hiss. “Or you’ll be in the hospital. Are you injured?”

“I’ll be fine. Don’t think anything’s broken, just bruised.” He shifted his hand away, lifting it to his nose and smelling fresh blood. She eyed the bright red stain on his hand and wrinkled her nose. He opened his mouth, but she pressed a pair of fingers against his lips, forestalling comment. She immediately regretted the contact again, yanking her hand away and walking off. “Ribs hurt like hell, and pretty sure I’ll be a walking bruise tomorrow. Don’t start in on it.” She shook her head. “I’ll see medical when we’re done here. I can still stand, I can still breathe, I’m fine.”

Kenshi nodded, walking over to the still-running van the Black Dragon had arrived in. He opened the sliding door and Sonya looked inside. It looked like it had been stolen and then stripped down, and it wouldn’t surprise her if that’s precisely what tracing the plates revealed. There were two sleek metal cases sitting inside, each with locks, and Kenshi turned to her. “Leave them here, or…?”

“I want to know what’s in them.”

“I will handle that,” he said, backing up and reaching out with one hand. A blue light surrounded his fingers and one of the cases. Sonya stepped out of the way, and turned into the bright lights of a pair of vans pulling in. She dropped again into a fighting stance, the blue light abruptly shifting from Kenshi so he stood ready with Sento.

“Relax, it’s us.” Stryker’s voice came over the radio as the van doors opened, and they heard the hard impact of feet on the ground. He approached Sonya and Kenshi as they dropped out of their ready stances into clearly more tired and relaxed positions. “Hell of a body count. But - one left, looks like. Onabru, grab him, would you?”

“A few are in pieces.” Sonya walked to one of the suited corpses. Stryker caught up to her partway to it, looking down at the body with her.

“That was a clusterfuck,” Stryker said, his words rough but his voice more concerned than she expected. “But you got the rest?”

“Everyone accounted for. Kenshi has a hell of a lot of self control. The one that jumped him, he left alive.” She shook her head, voice tinged with a faint trace of amazement.

Stryker frowned, and then looked her over with objective eyes. “You’re a mess, Sonya.”

“And I’m your boss, so I’d watch your mouth.”

“You won’t be if you keep this up. We’ll be putting you in the ground, and I really hate funerals. How much of this is your blood?”

“Not a lot.” He gave her a knowing look, one stubborn fighter to another. He reached forward and lifted up her half-shirt with pure professionalism, gloved hands not quite touching her stomach and ribs.

“You’re gonna be all over bruises. At some point I’ll convince you to start wearing a tac vest. Or at least a whole shirt. Your pay’s gotta cover some damn tee shirts.” He looked up at her face again. “Can’t focus on the job at hand if we’re too busy worrying that you’re not adequately protected. Boss.”

“We’ve been over this. They impair my movement, and I run hot. They work fine for you with your toys, but the garrote and gauntlets are as armed as I ever want to be. Give up on it. I’ll take my lumps like a big girl.” She flashed him a half-smile. “Anyway, doesn’t usually matter if it’s half a shirt or all of a shirt, if I’m pounding them down with my legs and boots. You’ll notice I keep those nice and covered.”

His jaw tightened and he pulled her shirt down with surprising gentleness. “I’ll handle the cleanup here - get your gear from the office, and all that. You get back and get looked over. Last thing I want to do is take over your workload while you’re out on medical because you took too long to get checked out and punctured a lung or something.”

“So how was the chase? We made sure you weren’t bored, at least.” She pointedly changed the topic.

Stryker snorted and brushed his hands off on his pants. “Guy ditched the car a few blocks away and took off on foot, but we lost him. Making arrangements to get the car analyzed and checked out.”

“Did you hear what they were saying?” Sonya looked across to him; it took her a few moments to focus, her vision hazier than she thought it should be. Blood pounded in her veins as she slowly came down off the adrenaline rush. She nudged the body in front of them with a boot, and it didn’t move. Stryker knelt down, checking for a pulse, and shook his head.

“We have it all recorded, but nothing I recognized,” he said.

“It was Japanese. If they are yakuza, they will likely have tattoos.” Kenshi returned to the cases, sheathing his blade. His fingers took on a blue hue, as did one of the cases, as he worked to telekinetically force the lock.

“If I can get a ride back to OIA, I’ll clean up and start in on the paperwork,” Sonya commented. Still crouched down, Stryker opened the dead man’s jacket, unbuttoned the shirt, and pushed it to the side. Both let out a low whistle of surprise. The man’s pectorals were intricately decorated in tattoos, what looked like a scene straight out of the Netherrealm with demons fighting a battle. She was impressed despite herself at the intricacy of the work. She could see it, even in the bad light, shading and scenery body inked onto his muscles.

“Great. I come out here from New York and trade the mafia for the yakuza. Better ink, at least.” Stryker sighed. “I guess I’ll be dropping some lines to the guys in organized crime and seeing what contacts I can pull on this. Yakuza and Black Dragon working together doesn’t give me a good feeling. What’s your take on it?”

“I don’t know enough about the yakuza,” she said. “What I do know is the Black Dragon will sell anyone to anything as long as there’s money in it, and apparently will also double-cross their sales. Anyone Kano’s got dealings with means they’re beyond unsavory.” She exhaled and hid a wince. “We’ll have to check them for ID and run them through every system.”

“Yeah, I know how to handle this part. Probably better than you.”

Sonya nodded, willingly conceding the point. He knew procedure for civilian matters, and she could trust him to handle this; it’s part of why she and Jax had nearly begged (nearly, she would swear always, nearly) him to join the OIA. Black Dragon, Outworld, military - that was all her, but Stryker had experience she and Jax had never gotten. She unfisted her hands, wondering when they’d knotted themselves up, and forcibly stretched out her fingers.

There was a pop from behind them, and both Stryker and Sonya spun around, ready for more combat. She was beginning to feel haggard, the adrenaline working its way out of her system. Kenshi motioned to the metal case, lid gaping open. There was an unabashed smirk on his face. “Is this what you were looking for?”

Sonya walked over and peered into it. “Going for the classics… It’s all Smith & Wessons in here. Little surprised they’re dealing in something so…”

“Mundane?”

“I was expecting a little more tech,” she admitted. “Guess we’ll see what’s in the others. Would you mind..?”

Kenshi nodded, and moved to the second case. Around them, other members of the team were lifting bodies, including the unconscious Black Dragon, and the grunts and commentary filled the night as Kenshi used his telekinesis to force the case open. There was a muffled thump and then the sound of the latches popping.

“Bingo.” Her voice was satisfied. “Hey, Stryker. Look what we got.”

“I don’t like it when you sound that happy. Makes me think of my old LT when I was getting put-“ He broke off, looking into the box of beam emitters, each one of nestled into a cut out space in the foam padding. “Well, hell.”

“Let me get some photos for ID, I’ll ride back with Kenshi’s new friend, get started on everything, start getting this catalogued.” She turned to Kenshi. “How long is he going to be out?”

“I am not sure,” the swordsman admitted. “I attacked his mind with prejudice.”

Sonya made a soft scoffing sound, and gave him a dirty look. “And you say my bias towards them is known.”

“It could be only a few more minutes, or it could be several hours. It depends on how resilient his mind is. As well as his nervous system.”

“So we get him in a holding cell and get someone ready to interrogate him.”

“Which will not be you.” Kenshi’s voice was quiet, head tilting down, speaking for her alone. “I can hear your breathing. It’s not… right. You need to be checked out, and then rest.”

“What the fuck is it with you people and trying to manage me,” she snapped. “You can stay here with Stryker then, and clean up. Just stop in my office before you go home. I’ll read out the report to you and you can sign off on it, or not.”

He nodded, fingers reaching for her shoulder, brushing it lightly. She stiffened at the contact. “Agreed.”

Stryker’s voice interrupted them, sounding more than a little aggrieved.

“The hell, Sonya? Why did you have to leave me a shattered skull and an half an arm?”

“Can’t say I never gave you anything.”


	4. Stumbling Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With dawn not quite breaking, Kenshi finally lets Sonya in on the secret he's been holding back.

Head lolling against the window of the car as they drove back, Sonya sent Jax a brief text message letting him know the operation was mostly successful. He sent back a succinct response several minutes later - “there in 30”. She wondered if he’d even been asleep. She couldn’t decide if she hoped he had been, or if she hoped he hadn’t; he deserved a good night’s sleep, but if she’d interrupted him and Vera, she’d never hear the end of it from either of them.

In her heart of hearts, she hoped she’d interrupted him. At least one of them deserved something good.

She had been stripped of her jacket, shirt and bra and was sitting on a bed in their small medical bay. The room smelled of antiseptic and annoyance, while a small dehumidifier hummed away in a corner against the humidity. The medic grumbled at her as he checked her over. She rarely felt more like a piece of meat than in these moments. She heard the door open behind her, and only the firm grip of the medic on her arm and pressing against her back kept her from spinning around to see who had intruded.

“Get some clothes on.” Jax’s voice was unaccountably amused. “Eventually, you’re gonna get knocked down and stay down, princess.”

“Asshole,” she swore, looking over her shoulder slightly at him, her arms out loosely as the medic checked her back. “If it was anyone else, I’d think you were here to see me topless.”

“Hey now, I like being in one piece, thanks. Sometimes I’m dumb, but I’m not that dumb.” He walked over, staying out of the medic’s way, and far out of her reach. “According to the reports coming in, none of your playmates had had ID in their pockets. Photos are uploading, and we need to get them run through all the agencies. LAPD, ICE, DHS…”

“Figured as much. The photos are supposed to be getting sent to me so I can start that once I’m done with this. I feel like we’re playing Boggle with all these abbreviations in play now.” She sucked in a breath as the medic began to bandage up the cut on her shoulder. It looked worse than it felt, or so she convinced herself. “Kenshi said he thought they were yakuza. We should reach out to anybody we have in Japan. I think I know a guy who knows a guy, but I’ll need to send off some messages. It’s pulling family connections from way back.” 

“Works for me. I think we have someone over there with the old SF connections, I’ll get back to you on it. Stryker’s already sending messages off to his old contacts, so we should have enough eyes on it soon enough.”

The medic waited for a pause and then looked over to Jax. “She’s got an impressive number of contusions, bruised ribs, the shoulder knifing, and signs of chronic exhaustion and overexertion, sir. I recommend three to seven days of medical leave. A minimum of two are required to ensure none of the ribs are actually broken, as she refuses transport to a hospital and a CT scan or x-ray. She should be under full medical observation for a minimum of twenty-four hours for the same reason.”

“I’ll take one day off and no observation.”

“Three,” Jax said to her. “As your boss, you’re starting with three and I’m going to have someone in IT track your ass to make sure at least two of them you stay home. Take your secured phone, secure laptop, and get out of my building.”

“After I do my paperwork here. I told Kenshi I’d write up our end of the report, read it off to him, and he could either sign off on it or not.” 

“Alright. Get some clothes on and do it, then. I’ll start in on all the shit you’ve stirred up, make nice with the local boys in blue, and give you a call tomorrow.” 

“Hey.” Her voice turned serious, face going professional, as if they were in uniform and at a formal meeting, despite the hour and Sonya’s state of undress. “Make sure you toss Stryker and Kenshi whatever extra cash or… whatever it is we can swing. Extra vacation days or something. Take it out of my pay and entitlements if you have to. They busted their asses, and I owe only having bruised ribs to Kenshi.”

“Still think he was a good call as an agent?” Jax raised an eyebrow. “We don’t know shit about him, Sonya.”

“Think this pushed something. He was going to tell me something the first night, I told him to hold off. Going to see if I can get it out of him.” She sucked in a breath and took her clothes back from the medic, who pointedly rose and left so she could dress. “Says he’s not a mole, but…”

“Copy that. Do your report, get home, go sleep. I’ll read everything over and get you updates tomorrow once I’ve had a chance to cull the wheat from the chaff.”

The rapping of knuckles on her office doorframe shook Sonya from her report. She looked up as the light from the hall was abruptly blocked by a shadow, and being backlit made it harder to tell who was intruding. It was comparatively slim, not quite as broad or as tall as Jax or Stryker. Stryker had already come and gone, anyway, giving her a hard time and making sure she understood he cared, in that overprotective sibling kind of way. At this hour in the morning, there was only one other person it could be.

“You here to give me a hard time, too?” 

“Sonya.” Kenshi stepped inside. “Checking to see if the report was finished. I will be calling a taxi shortly to get home.”

“Almost done, then I’m off for breakfast and to sleep for a week.” She rolled her head around on her neck and sucked in a breath as the motion pulled on her injuries. Her eyes settled back on the computer monitor in front of her. “In reality, I’ll get about six hours before I have to go over everything in detail and we expand this op, because it’s definitely bigger than we expected.”

“Why do you say that?” The man took a few more steps inside, resting a hand on the back of a chair but not sitting. 

“Yakuza in California isn’t entirely surprising, but we have no information on the extent of their dealings with the Black Dragon. I don’t like the idea of the two syndicates working together - I don’t know a hell of a lot about the yakuza,” she admitted, “but the little I do seems to make me think they overlap dangerously. We’re getting photos off to a contact in Japan and we’ll see if we can get some IDs. Your buddy in holding hasn’t woken up yet.” 

“I understand.” His voice was clipped, and she looked up at him. She could see the exhaustion in the way he held himself, fingers gripping the back of the chair tightly. “You’ve been checked by medical, then?” 

“Knife cut to the shoulder, significant contusions, I need to start wearing armor if I want to see thirty at this rate, bruised ribs but not any likely broken, lots of painkillers. Likely concussion, should be monitored overnight, etcetera.” She mimicked the medic’s ponderous tones. “Though,” her voice turned serious, “I really would have been a lot worse off if you hadn’t dropped the guy who wanted to splatter me on a wall. Jax is forcing me to take a few days off. If you can give me twenty to finish this up, I’ll take you to breakfast. Forget the cab, I’ll drop you back at your place.” She kept her eyes on him for several long seconds; he looked ready to fall asleep where he stood, and she didn’t expect him to take her up on it.

“It is three in the morning, Sonya. Should you even be driving?”

“I haven’t taken more than a couple of OTC painkillers. It’s not so bad if no one makes me think about it. And if it’s three here, it’s something like six or seven at night over there. I won’t get an answer from Japan for at least twelve hours. Have to do it now or I set us a day behind.” She yawned widely. “It’s not like I have a wild party planned when I get home. Me and my mattress until someone calls me with a SITREP update.”

He visibly considered his options, and she could see a mix of expressions flicker across his face. In the end, he nodded and tugged his jacket a little tighter in front. “I will take you up on that,” he said. She might have seen a smile flash across his face, but in the iffy light, she wasn’t sure.

Sonya’s preferred greasy spoon was nothing fancy, a diner with battered faux-leather booths and graveyard shift waitstaff that were unimpressed by everything. Thankfully they didn’t eavesdrop much, meaning she could (and had, in the past) use it for brainstorming ideas and post-op relaxation. They also managed to have one of her childhood favorites down to an art, so it had become her default whenever she had an op that lent itself to breakfast. She leaned back in the booth, looking across to Kenshi and idly ran her fingers through the condensation on her glass.

“So. We had a couple of things to go over, didn’t we?”

“Stryker had some choice invective for me on our apparent preferred combat procedures, after you left.” Kenshi sipped from the plain white mug in front of him. “Apparently I’m a bad influence. I asked how that was even possible, and he said something about New York?” 

“He would.” She sipped her juice. “Back before all this, the tournaments and Outworld and everything, I was Special Forces. Jax was my CO. I had a partner, wasn’t Jax. We handled Black Dragon issues, trying to take them down and out, control the growth of the syndicate. Pretty straightforward. We ran everything by the book, kept it on the straight and narrow. That’s the first time we worked together - us and Kabal, since he was ex-Black Dragon. Shit, we had some good nights, I almost felt bad for running Kabal through the wringer to get everything we could out of him. He was good with it as long as we paid in drinks and sparring.

“Then things hit the fan with Kano, and he killed my partner, and we got fed bad intel, and we found out Kabal maybe wasn’t so far out of the Black Dragon as Stryker and I thought he was. So - New York is back when things were good. After all that… Well, I have a hard time trusting. I tend to go after Black Dragon, and anyone associated with them, maybe a little more than Stryker would like. He goes by the playbook, even for them. Now, I throw it out when it comes to the Black Dragon. I guess he was hoping you’d be a little more… by the book.”

“That explains… quite a bit.” He seemed to file the information away. “And what did medical truly say to you?”

She eyed him. “Doesn’t matter, I didn’t have to go to the hospital.” She was fairly certain he was looking down his nose at her through the sunglasses. He was hard to read.

“And now a question. How serious were you about knowing more about me?”

It caught her enough by surprise that she froze in place, one hand gripping the edge of the table, and tried to stop feeling like a recruit called out by her drill instructor. “Well, we’ve been working together for a bit and nobody knows much about you. And I can’t say word one about anything other than the fact that you’re blind, you use a sword, you’re a telepath - and a telekinetic with Sento in hand.” She glanced at him, trying to read his body language with little luck. “You’re also Japanese, or mostly. And I’ve never not seen you covered up. Hell, the only time I see you not wearing gloves is times like now, or at the bar, when we’ve got downtime. For all I know, under all that, you’re covered in burns or scars or you’re sewn together like Frankenstein’s monster.” 

“I am not Frankenstein’s monster.” He lifted his mug and sipped again. “I do have a reason for remaining so armored, beyond simply protection.” His shoulders pulled back, and she could see the muscles in his hands and forearms tighten. Ah, good, a fucking _clue_ with the body language. Indignation was a start.

“Long ago - another life, as far as I am concerned - I was more or less a happy child. I had the things I wanted, the things I needed, and many things I did not. I was indulged. We lived in Kyoto, and we came from a line of samurai. My father was always one for the old ways and arranged for me to have lessons with the katana, and other fighting techniques, at a local samurai school. They still exist,” he added, as if she had begun to question him. “So I learned to fight, and I was very, very good. It became clear that while academics would never be my strong point, there was no one as good as I was in the area. So I neglected my schoolwork, to my parents’ despair, and spent more and more time fighting. I learned hand to hand combat, I learned the katana, even archery.

“When I was in my early teens I began to want more. The objective experiences, the practice of fighting, became boring. I wanted real fighting. I finished compulsory schooling and shortly after was recruited into a local group of yakuza. I found it far more to my liking. There was a hierarchy, but there was history - and my mixed bloodline meant nothing to them as long as I worked hard. I was no street thug, but neither was I an… executive. Middle management, perhaps. I spent several years involved, doing very well - well-regarded, managing the interests I was asked to, using my family’s money when I needed to in order to make myself look better.”

“No wonder you and Cage get along,” Sonya said sourly. Kenshi raised a brow, but did not acknowledge it. 

“I became bored. There was no challenge; I had made my mark, but the yakuza was not the glamorous thing I had thought it would be. I left - and they were angry with me for it. I wandered outside of Japan for some years, and you know the rest.” He spread his hands out on the table. “I know yakuza, I know how they think, how they operate - or at least how they did, more than a decade ago. They will not be happy to hear their arrangements here have been disrupted. I do not know who operates here, how much of an organization there is, but if we had not - done what we did, there would be reparations to be made. Missing fingers, or large amounts of payoff.”

“I feel like you’re cutting a lot of things out.” She leaned back against the squeaky padding of the booth, tipping her head to one side. “So you’re telling me you’re a former Japanese gangster, got out, and then all the shit with Shang Tsung and Sento and all that. And now that we’re dealing with yakuza here - you feel like you need to ‘fess up.” She crossed her arms, then changed her mind and reached for a piece of toast, buttering it and slathering jam atop it. “I’m supposed to believe that you’ve kept this secret from the OIA out of the goodness of your heart. That Raiden and Fujin know, and condone it.” 

“Yes.” He listened for a moment, tilting his head slightly.

“No one’s over here, the waitress is filling up coffee, you’re fine.” At Sonya’s words, he nodded, and then pulled down the collar on his shirt towards one shoulder, revealing a stretch of geometric black and grey tattoo she couldn’t identify. She made a soft noise, noncommittal, but hopefully enough to hide the sudden feelings of panic and curiosity that warred within her. “Well, you’ve got something, I’ll grant.”

“Really, Sonya?”

“Really, Kenshi?” She mimicked. “I attended boot camp and additional training with the Special Forces. We’ve both fought since then. I’ve seen bodies of all kinds, in all states. You don’t have glowing tattoos like Fujin. You don’t have cybernetic arms like my best friend. You don’t have arm blades like a Tarkatan - or a face full of fangs like Mileena. The service is full of people with ink. You’re more notable for the eyes.” 

Kenshi exhaled with visible irritation, and she gave him a smug look. 

“Fine. You are supposed to be under supervision, monitoring, for your medical state.” He posed it as a statement, not a question, sure to raise her ire. “So then I will monitor you, and then I can show you the extent of this so you understand this is not a half-sleeve or something done while drunk and rejoicing about finishing training.” She opened her mouth, and he raised a finger. “You do not need a babysitter. I am well aware.”

“Stay out of my damn head,” she said sharply. He leaned back and smiled. It was genuine and broad, lips tilting upward and flashing the bright white of his teeth.

“I was not, Sonya. Anything that offends your dignity, your independence.” He reached out a hand, palm up, towards her across the table. She could recognize that, at least, as the display of vulnerability it was intended as. “And call it self-preservation, because if Jax finds out that I was the last to see you and you suddenly had a medical emergency, he would tear me into very small pieces and feed them to the coyotes, and melt Sento into a paperweight.”

“Can’t argue with that,” she said, touching his fingertips with hers. “I’ll pay and we can get out of here and you can show me why you think I should be so hot and bothered.”


	5. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenshi finally reveals at least one of his secrets, Sonya promises not to kiss and tell, and a phone call results in a new change of status quo.

Opening the door to her apartment, Sonya motioned Kenshi inside. “Not much, but it’s home.” She disarmed her alarm, shut the door behind her, flipped the lock, and slid a deadbolt with practiced motions. She stepped around him and sat down in a chair, unlacing her boots. “How much of a tour do you need?”

“Just don’t leave anything in the middle of the floor and I will manage. I am familiar with the general layout of apartments.” He knelt down and began to unfasten his own boots.

“Well, there’s nothing in the middle of the floor. Not much of anything, really.” She glanced around the sparsely decorated apartment. “Couch on your left, kitchen’s straight ahead, hall is past the couch. Hang a left in the hall, bathroom’s first door on the right, my room’s the second, go any farther and you’ll hit a wall. That’s all she wrote.”

“And here I thought there would be piles of throw pillows.”

“I have an extra pillow for guests. I can smother you with it if you’d like. Do not make me kick your ass right now. I’m tired.” She yawned to punctuate the statement. “I need to get out of my gear and go pass out or I won’t even make it to the couch. If you’re determined to make this a show, come on, then.”

He turned his head towards her with an almost conspiratorial look. He shrugged off his leather jacket, and she took it from him, fingers sliding over and savoring the texture of the supple leather as she hung it over the arm of her couch. He removed his sunglasses and held them in one hand. “I have not made this a deliberate show in a very long time.”

“Promise I won’t kiss and tell. I’ve seen tats before, Kenshi, just not yours. You’re making this a hell of a big deal.” She rubbed the heel of one hand at her eyes - he was as bad as Cage, drumming up a whole bunch of suspense for what was probably a half-sleeve. She’d had squadmates like this, but then again - he did spend a good chunk of his free time with an egotistical actor. He’d clearly taken some tips on being theatrical. 

Kenshi made a skeptical sound, dropping his hands across his chest and down to the hem of his shirt, pulling it off in a smooth motion. She let out a long, low whistle. It was in part for the freshly revealed musculature, but more for the sheer quantity and intricacy of the tattoos Kenshi sported across almost all of his torso. From a small length below the base of his neck down, tattoos covered his nearly all his exposed skin. The designs ended halfway down his forearms with a sudden clean break to unmarked skin. She couldn’t see the ends of anything on his torso, assuming everything continued for at least another couple of inches into his jeans. And it was time to stop that train of thought before it went places she couldn’t afford to go.

There was too much to take in at once. bright colors and shapes and swaths of grey and black, what looked like fish and dragons and flowers and shapes. She simply couldn’t absorb what she saw, and the headache and pain wouldn’t go away and didn’t help her concentration. Her impulsiveness and curiosity won out over any sort of professional detachment. 

“I take it back,” she said slowly. “I haven’t seen it all.” A cocky smile lit his face and he dipped his chin to one side in satisfaction. She let out a groan at his self-satisfied look, only earning a broader grin across his lips. 

She balled her hands up into fists at her sides, her eyes roaming over him. Her nails dug deep into her palms, and the little kick of fresh piercing pain helped her focus on something other than the very well-muscled heavily-inked man in front of her. Keep it clinical. Keep it professional. Ignore the fact that before all this, an agreement was struck for him to spend the night. 

Absolutely ignore the fact that they’d kissed after the fight, and she’d enjoyed that far more than was professionally appropriate. 

“So now you understand when I said they were distinct.” His voice danced with amusement. His arms hung loosely down at his sides, shirt and sunglasses still caught in one hand.

“Uh-huh.” She walked over to him, reached out a hand, and then snatched it back before she made contact. “Can I touch?”

“Can you-?” He seemed to be caught wholly by surprise. “Normally I would expect dinner and drinks first.” 

“I bought you two dinners, breakfast, and brought you to a brawl. You want anything fancier, you go talk to Cage.” 

He snorted in response and let his hands fall to the sides, one still gripping the shirt and sunglasses. “You may,” he said after a long breath. “If you’d like to.”

She watched him tense once more as if in anticipation. The play of muscles bunching beneath the skin made the images rise or stretch and become all the more interesting. His shoulders and upper arms bore whorls of black and grey and white, with the reds and pinks and whites of cherry blossoms in peak bloom. On his back, the flowers drifted over two koi spread wide across most of his back. The fish were brilliant red and gold and black, scales individually marked. She reached up and very slowly ran a finger along the sinuous curves of one. She felt his muscles shift beneath her hand, caught the slight way he tipped his head back, his unsteady inhale as she grazed her finger along the one of the koi. The fish seemed to be bursting out of the water; droplets of spray fell from them, and she could see the shapes of waves disappearing down into his jeans. Her fingers drifted slowly, marking the broad bright stretch of a peony the size of her hand, placed below one of the leaping fish. She circled him slowly to look at the tattoos that covered his chest.

Between the muscle from years of training and the ink, she couldn’t peel her eyes away. She should be able to - she was a soldier, a professional. She saw bodies every day, and somehow this was different. The pieces on his trapezius, pectorals, shoulders, and biceps were flowers she couldn’t name but guessed were significant, bright blue and yellow and pink and orange against the black. The only one she recognized was a chrysanthemum like the ones in her mother’s garden. Down the centerline of his body, a span of bare skin separated the tattoos into panels. Some of the peony from his back curved around his ribs, blowing in what looked like a gust of wind. Maple leaves dropped down atop a three-clawed dragon. Her fingers brushed across the dragon’s head, tracing the scales and the way it curled around itself, clutching a pearl. She couldn’t see all of it; at least half, she guessed, continued out of sight. Her fingers slid across the stark contrast of bare skin across his navel and then stroked the other half of brilliant ink, a tiger on a mountain. He swallowed; she saw his nipples tighten, the skin contract, as her fingers drifted over the tiger.

His breath was slow and steady as she moved not quite at arm’s length, tracing the shapes with the rough pads of her fingers or the fine lines of her nails. He stood still and easily, as if it didn’t matter to be stared at so blatantly, though his body’s responses told a different story. She knew she would have shrunk under a gaze as avaricious as hers had to be. She was also equally certain he knew just how much she liked what she saw. He had to be able to hear the breakneck pounding of her heart and the occasional catch of her breath as she came across something new. She stopped in front of him, ran her hands down his arms, back up, and then spread her hands wide across his pectorals. 

“You’re a fucking work of art.” She couldn’t help but voice her admiration. “I know why you keep armored, but - damn, Kenshi. I could look at this for hours.” She followed the lines of one petal of a golden chrysanthemum with a fingernail and tried very hard not to notice the hitch in his breathing.

“If you intend to, I must ask for a change of venue,” he said, voice showing a hint of strain for the first time since everything had begun. “It’s been a very long night.”

“Good thing you didn’t get to telling me about this while we were surveilling or I wouldn’t have been able to focus.” She tried for levity, hoped she’d hit the mark. In truth, she wanted to tug off the rest of what he was wearing and see all of it. She wanted to trace it all with her fingers, see every inch, every scale and leaf and wave and whatever else he had hidden away. Her own skin suddenly seemed tight, the smattering of scars she bore nothing compared to the masterpiece he wore. 

“As I explained, I have a very good reason to keep covered. My tattoos are very identifiable, and I have an interest in ensuring I’m not noticed.”

“Not noticed?” She laughed and took a step back. Whatever had been building snapped as she did. The laugh made it easier to breathe, and she inhaled deeply to fill her lungs, only stopping when the pain was too much to let her continue. “I don’t know who you think you’re fooling, but you’re pretty damn recognizable.”

“There can be men with swords and even blindfolds, but the tattoos are individual, unique.” He took his own deep breath, turned his face to her. “Even a dragon is done differently, placed differently, colored differently, no matter how common the motif may be. And now you’ve seen them.”

“Like anyone would believe me if I said I got my hands on you, saw all of… this.” She gestured, taking another step back from him. “You know my reputation. Me seeing you half-dressed has about as much believability as me cashing in my commission and leaving the service. Your secret’s safe, don’t worry.” She took another few steps back. “I’m going to go change, and then I’m ready to rack out. To sleep,” she amended at the quizzical expression on his face. “I’m sleeping in my own bed. After the sleeping bag and the floor, not missing my mattress tonight.” She took a few steps and then pivoted on one heel, looking back to where he stood, still shirtless, chest rising and falling unevenly. “You’re welcome to the floor, couch, or if you think you can keep your hands to yourself, you can have half.”

“Have half?”

“The bed. I’m gonna go change. You’ve got a few minutes to decide.”

Sonya was not sure what she expected to find after she finished getting ready to sleep, throwing on an old tee shirt from her military academy days and a change of underwear. She was pretty sure she’d find him on the couch, all things considered - he wasn’t much for physical contact when he wasn’t armored, beyond small things the equivalent of eye contact and for locating himself in space. And baring himself to her, in a very literal sense, must have cost him; she had not expected the tattooing or the story that came with it.

She definitely had not expected to find him tucked up neatly on one side of her bed - the side she generally didn’t sleep on, at that. He was already unconscious, breathing slow and deep. And the damn man hadn’t even bothered to put his shirt on; she could see the designs in the low light of the early morning.

It took her a very long time to get to sleep.

The shrill sound of her phone startled her awake. She reached with one hand, feeling around on her nightstand. Barely opening her eyes, she swiped her fingers across the screen and accepted the call. “Blade.” Her voice was groggy and exhausted. Once it was pressed to her head, she promptly closed her eyes again and lay back on her pillow.

“Sonya.”

“Fuck off, Jax. What time is it?”

“Oh-eight hundred.”

“I’ve had about four hours of sleep. The hell do you want?” She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, resigned to her fate. “When do I need to come in?” 

“Nah, you’re fine. Figured you’d had more sleep, though. We gotta go over some updates.” He snorted on the other end of the line. “Kenshi’s bad for you. The body count on this was a little high.”

“Stryker told him the same thing. Anyway, I hoped for a day to sleep in. Rank has its privileges.”

“Yeah, well, we used to think we had luck that didn’t mean interdimensional death matches.” Jax sounded far too amused.

“Tell me about it. You need me now, or can we do this later? Have a better grip on things once there’s time to see how it looks now that we shook up the game board.” She stretched out to her toes, curling them into the mattress. Her ribs throbbed, and she sucked in a breath.

“Point. Go back to sleep. I’ll come by this afternoon, roust your ass, and we’ll go over it. Mind if I bring Stryker along?”

“No problem. Soon as you stop running your mouth, I’m sleeping again.” She yawned widely. “You sound too damn awake. And I never asked - did I interrupt anything last night?”

“I got myself into bed early, and that’s all you need to know.” His voice was sharp, and Sonya grinned to herself.

“I’ll ask her all about it later. Don’t you worry, your secret’s safe - for at least another few hours. I’ll hunt down Kenshi, I think there’s some insight he’s got on this he might share with us if we ask nicely.”

“We’ll make it a lunch meeting. Unless you really got hit in the head, you’re not gonna be up for cooking anything for the next couple of days. If you can hunt down Takahashi, would be good to hear what he has to say. Now go the fuck back to sleep, woman. Briggs out.”

“Blade out.”

Sonya dropped the phone back onto her nightstand and buried her face in her pillow. She hurt far more than she felt was reasonable, but probably less than she should have. She must have overextended some muscles even beyond her ribs; her calves ached, and one of her shoulders throbbed. No - that was a knife wound, she remembered now. No handstands and less upper body work until it was cleared up. 

“Need to go in?” Kenshi’s voice was quiet by her ear, but close enough she could feel the warmth of his breath. It was definitely enough to startle her; she was surprised she didn’t clip him in the head as she shot up into a sitting position.

“Fucking hell, make noise next time.” Her heart pounded hard enough to burst.

His mouth hung open in a half-smile, eyes open and faintly gleaming. He rolled over onto his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows. She exhaled, pressing her head back against the headboard of the bed, one hand knotting in the top sheet. She’d entirely forgotten he was there, and now that she remembered, she wondered how the hell she’d forgotten in the first place. Exhaustion was her only excuse.

“I’d ask how much you heard,” she continued, trying to calm herself, “but I know better.”

“Merely being polite,” he agreed complacently, stretching out in the bed. She worried at that nonchalant tone. What wheels were already turning? She watched with bleary eyes as he stretched out, biting down hard on her lower lip to keep from letting out a pleased sound at the view. “So you have a lunch meeting?” 

“We do,” she corrected him. “What you told me over breakfast - Jax and Stryker really should know. And I want to get an idea of how far this thing goes. Why, you have a hot date to reschedule?” 

“I am not certain. Will you require supervision again tonight?” 

“Don’t push your luck or I’ll throw your ass on the couch.”

“In your state? I would like to see you try.” 

She reached over to smack his shoulder lightly. “I could kick your ass even if I was in traction. Sounds like we need to come up with an excuse as to why no one needs to pick you up from your place, though.”

“Why make an excuse? Tell them the truth. You took me to breakfast, we continued a conversation. I told you about my history. You were exhausted and you are injured, and so I spent the night here in the event there was an emergency. You yourself have seen a telepath and telekinetic is not useless.” He raised his eyebrows in her direction. “And I’m certain you could tell them point-blank that I spent the night in your bed, and they would not believe either of us.” 

“There’s a lot of things we could say that they wouldn’t believe.” Sonya reached to rub at the wound on her shoulder and then pulled her hand away before she could aggravate the wound. “I could say you’re an Elder God, or that I’ve just been promoted to General, or that you’ve declared your undying love and devotion.” She grunted irritably. “You go back to sleep. The adrenaline from you scaring the shit out of me means I won’t be unconscious again any time soon.”

“You have days off for a reason. And four hours of sleep is more than I often get. Old habits die hard.” He closed his eyes and settled his head back on the pillow. “That does not mean that I will not enjoy a comfortable bed while I have it. I have learned to be opportunistic.” He tapped the space on the bed beside him. “Surely work can wait.” 

“Being self-indulgent in bed won’t keep the reports and e-mails from coming in. You get to do the fun stuff. The bullshit is how I earn my paycheck and keep Jax from having a breakdown.” She caught a look of annoyance ghosting across Kenshi’s face. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, toes hovering above the floor, not quite ready to commit, not quite ready to leave. “Anyway. Trust me, no one’s coming in here without me knowing about it. You had a hell of a night, you deserve more sleep.”

“Sonya.” She felt a shift behind her, and then one of his hands catch her wrist. “Your night was as bad as mine was. You are a hypocrite if you tell me to stay here, and you resume working. Especially since I know your own commanding officer told you to - and I quote - go the fuck back to sleep.”

“Why, you need a cuddle?” Her tone was tart, and she expected a wounded look. She didn’t expect the laugh.

“I kept my hands off, didn’t I?”

“You did,” she acknowledged almost grudgingly. “Because you were asleep.”

“I had intended to remain awake,” he said slowly, almost hesitantly, “but this is actually a very comfortable mattress. You did not play fair.” 

“Never said I did.” She paused, and turned around, drawing her legs back up on the bed. “Why, I ruin some plans of yours?” 

“I had something in mind.” He tugged at her wrist, shifting a little closer, hand moving from her wrist up her arm, and then down it again in a featherlight caress. She quirked a brow, trying her best to keep her face expressionless. “Are you going to make me beg?”

“Would I do something like that?” 

“Would you like a genuine answer?” He sat up again and moved to sit behind her and slightly to the side. She could feel heat radiating off him, the pressure of knee and leg even under the sheet and blanket She raised her eyebrow again.

“What’s that supposed to mean? And no, you don’t need to beg. Just - just ask nicely, so I’m clear.” 

His hand paused in its stroking, and she found herself leaning back against him as his arm wrapped around her stomach, pressing her against him, his mouth beside her ear. “What you started against a wall, I would dearly, dearly like to finish.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I SWEAR NEXT CHAPTER THEY’LL HAVE THEIR FUN, OKAY!? (Yes, I know at least one of you is staring at me and probably shaking their finger, I NEEDED TO BUILD TENSION).


	6. A Tendency To Getting Physical (EXP)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's exactly what it says on the tin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I have been informed I’m being a sadist for not letting Sonya and Kenshi have some fun, so here we go. This chapter is essentially 100% smut so you can skip it for the next chapter if that’s not your jam.

“Now?” Sonya blinked, baffled. Now, when she looked like hell, her hair a mess, bruises appearing places she hadn’t noticed, morning breath and everything unappealing?

“Now,” he agreed, as if none of it mattered to him. His fingers played over the cotton of her shirt, and she let her head loll back a little more against him. “I had thought about last night, but your mattress is my undoing.”

“So you just came home with me to get in my pants, one way or another.” She eyed him, trying very hard to keep a deadpan expression.

“That was not the actual motive. You are a friend. I also would prefer Jax to not skin me if something happened to you, and I truly had been the last to see you before things went awry. But I had allowed myself to hope.” His hand crept upward until it rested just below one breast. “And in terms of pants…” Kenshi dropped his other hand down on her knee and slid it up her thigh until it caught on the trim of her underwear, and his breathing skipped. “Not that you are wearing any. You offered to bring me home, and did so with the explicit understanding I would be taking off at least some of my clothing.”

“Alright, you may have a point.” She drew out her words, sighing. “And I did enjoy the show.” Sleep had made some of the surprise of his tattoos wear off, but not entirely; it was still an illicit thrill. She turned her head and lipped at one of the blossoms casually, and his hands tightened on her. She grinned against his skin and added teeth. There was a stifled moan in her ear, caught not quite in time. His hand slid around her shirt and caught on a hole. He stuck three fingers into it and waggled them.

“I was going to argue that you were overdressed,” he said, “but now I question how much you’re actually wearing.”

“You’re blind, and you were sleeping. I wasn’t dressing to impress. Didn’t expect a wardrobe critique.”

“I’m surprised you have anything other than your uniforms,” he answered, hand skimming down to the hem of the shirt - and across several more holes - to tug the hem. “What did you do with this, bring it to the shooting range? Give it to a dog?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” His response was to reach his hand up under her shirt, and she could feel his calloused fingertips glide across the bare skin of her stomach, marking a trail of fire in its wake. This was a bad idea, but his hands felt good and she wanted more of them on her. His breathing definitely was struggling, she noted with satisfaction; she wasn’t the only one enjoying themself. His fingers traced the lines of her body, brushing back and forth as she leaned into it, enjoying the attention. She played her hands across his shoulder and arm, admiring the tattoos again. “When were these done?”

“Some before I lost my sight, some after. The same engraver - tattoo artist - did them all.” He dropped his hands and moved away. She turned around to watch him. He moved beneath the blankets, and she saw a pair of boxer briefs hit the floor.

Oh.

He pulled back the blankets and rolled over, and she sucked in another breath, warmth beginning to pool in her belly. “The ones from mid-thigh down I have never seen, either the outlines or the color work. These,” and he motioned to the ones on his hips and now-bare ass, “I never saw in color, only outline.”

“Well,” she deadpanned, “they’re nice.”

“Only nice?” He turned his head, tilt of his eyebrows showing his amusement.

“All of you is nice. And a lot all at once. Not used to having naked tattooed men in my bed, all things considered.”

He chuckled as she sat beside him, almost rolling into him with the dip of the mattress. She spread her hands along his back, deliberately drawing her touch down the muscles of his shoulders to the small of his back in a long gesture, across flowers and fish and waves. She leaned over, pressed her lips to each of the blossoms on his back, counting them silently, a mixture of awe and pleasure as she did. Warm from sleep, he smelled like her sheets and his own unique scent, something spicy and appealing. How had she never noticed it before? She followed the fish down his back with mouth and fingers, felt him shudder as she laid a line of kisses over his hip and down the side of one thigh and the flock of birds blazoned over his upper leg, the samurai warrior atop his calf, katana raised high.

“It’s incredible,” she said, lifting her mouth off his skin above his ankle, where the ink cut off in a crisp line. “Must have hurt like hell.”

“Part of the process.” He shifted as her hands worked up his legs again. She shook her head in awe, and ran her nails up the other thigh, across things that looked an awful lot like oni of the Netherrealm. She stretched out beside him, the better to look at the lines of the art that curved from front to back. He pillowed his head on his hands, turned his head to face her, eyes open and faintly blue.

“In another life. Now - fair is fair. You are overdressed for this conversation, particularly since we are baring… secrets.” He reached a hand over and tugged at her shirt again.

“I’m not nearly as interesting,” she scoffed. “US Army Special Forces soldier, whitebread Texan. Now OIA.”

“I happen to find you very interesting.” He pulled harder on her shirt, and there was the rasp of a ripping seam.

“Damn it,” she swore, laughing and pushing him. “You just tore my favorite shirt.”

“What was left of it,” he quipped.

She pulled it off, and held it up for a moment. “It actually does have sentimental value.” She sighed and smacked him soundly on the ass. “It was an old Academy shirt. End of an era.” She balled the shirt up, and tossed it off to one side. “Satisfied now?”

“I’ll buy you something to replace it,” he replied dryly. “Then you can destroy it at your leisure.” He reached a hand over and snapped the elastic of her underwear. She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, and then peeled them off with a huff.

“Normally people are a little more appreciative when I’m naked in bed with them, for the record.”

“I intend to be.” He grinned broadly, fingertips dancing over her ribcage and hip, along her thigh and leg. He made a low, satisfied sound when no cloth impeded his progress. “You have had your turn staring at me as if I was fresh meat, asking questions. I intend to reciprocate.”

She felt a sudden crackling in the space between them, and a reckless thrill shot from her scalp to her toes. “I’m not inked,” she pointed out, lying on her stomach. There was a shift ofthe mattress, then a bloom of heat as he settled next to her. He brushed the hair away from the nape of her neck, tucking it alongside her face. His hands began to run across her shoulders, marking nicks and cuts.

“But you still have stories.” His fingers tapped a small constellation of scars high on one shoulder. “Like this. What did this?”

“Shrapnel.” She felt his lips converge on the marks, hot and soft, while his fingers continuing to slowly map her out. He paused again, marking out a long and lightly rippled scar, almost as wide as a finger. His fingers stopped where down at the sheets, and she obligingly lifted herself up slightly so he could finish where it curved along her ribs. “Tasia’s katanas.”

“You need to wear armor, Sonya.”

“I need to train more and get better,” she countered. “Less playing fair, and more fighting to win.”

“If you need someone who will not play fair, I will be m happy to oblige you.” His fingers kept up their slow caresses, occasionally brushing the backs of his hands over her skin, as if to compare a texture. “I will play by the rules when I know the rules, but if there are no rules to follow…”

He kissed the backs of her thighs, the soft spaces behind her knees, and she let herself drift in the pleasure of his touch. She listening to the sounds of his lips over her skin, the little satisfied sounds he made as he explored. Desire continued building, following the path he made along her. His tongue traced a short and ancient scar that pulled high across the inside of one thigh, and she was sure he’d be able to tell he’d gotten her wet and wanting with this alone. She froze, a deer in headlights, when he slid his broad hands beneath her stomach and lifted her up so he could lip at the small scar again. It took her a moment to find her voice again from where it had settled low in her throat.

“That doesn’t have a very good story.”

“Tell me anyway.” He pulled his head up. It was easier to speak when he did, as if his proximity had knotted up her vocal cords.

“Nail on a fence when I was twelve. I was using it for a balance beam. Slipped, caught my shorts on the nail, scraped up my leg. Tetanus shots and everything.”

“Your parents must have despaired of keeping you out of trouble.” He moved again, his hands nudging her with a subtle pressure to turn over.

“I’ve never been easy to handle.”

“I know that from personal experience.” Amusement colored his words, and she rolled over, swatting lightly at his shoulder. His hands ghosted across her abdomen, the smooth unblemished stretch of skin, up along her ribs, stopping at the curves of her breasts.

“I’m offended by your implications that I need to be managed, and that you think you can.”

“At the moment I would say I am managing you very well.” He pushed her down gently with his hands on her shoulders, very careful to not touch the bandaged injury; she could feel the sparks pass between them as he did. Against her better judgment she opened her eyes, saw the tousled dark hair against her body, the ripple of muscle in his shoulders and arms as he shifted, flowers moving in the breeze of his skin. His mouth closed on a scar that crossed from her collarbone down along the inside swell of one breast, a single smooth slice that burned now under his touch. “I can guess who that came from.”

“And you’d be right.” She fisted her hands in the blankets. He chuckled and returned to his tactile exploration while her heart picked up speed again. She reached for the other pillow, set it up behind her, propping herself up to watch him. Why the hell not? He was good looking and she enjoyed the view as he kissed and licked and nipped his way along her. He drew trails down her skin with his tongue, and she felt her skin grow tight, goosebumps popping up as he learned her body with his hands and mouth. She felt the rigid heat of his erection brush against her as he moved; what she’d done to him was evident.

“You are beautiful.” He turned his face to her an eternity later, hands cupping her heels and thumbs stroking her arches.

“You can’t see a damn thing.”

“You are all muscle and scars and stubbornness. Strategy and cleverness and skill. I do not need to see to know it’s true.” He lay down again beside her, hand gliding up, resting on her upper arm. She rolled to lie on one hip, facing him, her own touch light on his face, and she could feel his cock prodding at her, trapped between them.

“I’ll give you the scars and stubbornness,” she said. “We’ll argue about the rest later.” She had one last line of restraint, and dug deep - she would not cave first, she would not, she’d already made an idiot of herself. He wasn’t an idiot, and he was blind but she knew all his senses - and the damn telepathy - meant he had to know how badly she wanted to do this.

One of his hands reached up and traced the outline of her face, her eyebrows, her nose, carefully avoiding her mouth. “You are beautiful,” he repeated, and she glared at him.

“You’re blind,” she said equitably. “You don’t know shit about how I look.”

“I am a telepath and I know precisely what some of our colleagues say - and think - about you. Jax has even shared some excellent stories about some of your former attire. Something about a lot of lycra?”

“Fuck you.” She snorted, but found herself unable to move.

“I really wish you would.”

There was a moment of surprised silence until she dropped onto her back, quaking with quiet laughter. “You serious?”

“Absolutely.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re shit at pick-up lines?”

“And yet here we are.” He ran his hand down her body again, shoulder to sternum, spreading wide between her breasts. “I have managed to get you out of your clothes, and in your bed. You even almost got out of it. I convinced you to get back in.” He pushed his hips against her lightly. “And my interest should be fairly obvious.”

She closed her eyes, trying hard not to think of how good his hand felt, how much she wanted his mouth on her again, the way all of this had made her want to melt or to demand he stop the foreplay and just get to it already. It had been long enough she was happy to be easy to convince. “You’re a piece of work, you know that? Come here.” 

He leaned over her, expression neutral, and she could see a thin furrowed line between his brows just before he kissed her. There was no hesitation as he moved, only a confidence that almost made her want to push him away just on principle. He didn’t push or demand, just teased and drew the tip of his tongue along the lines of her lips, spurring on her lust. She leaned up into it, curving a hand over his shoulder, nails sliding over his skin.

“You have no idea how very badly I want to do this.”

“Oh, I think I do. But you can show me anyway.” She grinned. This was the first step down a path of terrible choices, but yesterday had been a very long day. And he looked good and he smelled good and he had already proved more than once that he was good at kissing, and something about him said he’d be good at other things. “So, you just gonna hover there, or you gonna kiss me again?”

“I intend to do substantially more than that,” he said in a voice so soft she could barely hear it.

“Don’t start what you’re not going to finish.” She decided what the fuck, she might as well give in. Her mouth slanted against his, and he yielded to her immediately, mouth parting and his tongue tangling with hers, and this felt better than it should have for how terrible a decision it was. The only gentleness was an awareness of both of their injuries from the night before. He knelt over her and she could feel the heat of his erection trapped against her as he lowered his body and his mouth closed on one of her nipples. His tongue flicked the furled bud, teeth pulling lightly. She inhaled sharply and arched up, one hand dragging nails lightly across his shoulder and back. One of his hands busied itself kneading her neglected breast, rolling her nipple between fingertips.

He pulled his mouth away to her dismay, a pop audible as suction broke. “Anything that you do not want, that is not allowed?”

“I don’t break easily. I’ll let you know if there’s a problem. Right now, it’s that you stopped that.”

She didn’t know his eyes could gleam that way, and would swear to her dying day that they had mischief in them. A corner of her mind decided she was going to try to find a way to get them to do that again, because damn if it didn’t look hot. He returned to her breasts, coaxing moans and sighs out of her. He made open-mouthed kisses down her body, tongue dipping into her navel. He nosed through the springy curls over her sex, sliding one hand along the sensitive folds. She shuddered and pressed up against him, and he cupped her thigh, lifting it up to give him better access. Much as he’d done to her before, his tongue teased at the slick and sensitive skin between her thighs, and she let out a noise between a whine and a growl. He pressed his tongue in, tracing patterns that made her whine.

“Come back up here. I want to kiss you,” she said roughly. He circled the bud of her clit with his tongue, playing with it for a moment more before she knotting her fingers in his hair and tugged him up. He moved, almost reluctantly, and pressed his mouth to hers even as he slid a finger inside her. She moaned, open-mouthed and wanton. Unfair, that’s what this was, like he knew what she wanted before she did. Fucking telepath.

Her hand reached for his cock, closing around it for a heartbeat before he twitched his hips away - but not before she could feel wetness at the tip. He broke the kiss to shake his head, though he slid a second finger into her in recompense. “As much as I would like to have you do that, if you get your hands or mouth on me, I will be ruined,” he said self-deprecatingly. “Another time, when I have more control.” And then he froze, and it was her turn to chuckle. She was surprised how willing he was to admit to being close to losing himself - and the implication of another time. The idea appealed more than she expected.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She tried to think, despite the way his fingers kept driving coherent thought from her head. She tugged his head back down, kissing him again with tongue and a bit of teeth. He swiped the flat of his thumb across her clit and she rose up with an almost begging noise. “Can think of something better than your hand.”

“I know you can. I’m a telepath.” He grinned at her, pulling away. She did whine then. “You’re thinking very loudly.”

She swallowed then, and propped herself up slightly. “Then - you ought to know. I’ve got an implant, but - if you want, top drawer, I have-“

“Always planning,” he murmured, and shook his head. “No, I trust you.”

He cupped her face in one hand, and she turned enough to draw one of his fingers into her mouth. She could taste herself on him, and it turned her on more. She heard his ragged breath, felt the bulk of him settling between her thighs. She ran her tongue around his finger, twisting and licking. Her tongue tip pressed into the ridges and creases of his knuckles, the flat smoothness of his fingernail. He tasted like salt and skin and her and she hummed with satisfaction. He groaned, his fingers working at her inner walls as she sucked, teasing him with a pale reflection of what he’d denied. She hoped he regretted it.

He withdrew his finger slowly and slid his cock into her equally unhurried, until her mouth was empty and her cunt was gently stretched and their hips were flush. Sonya gloried in the sensation of fullness, the way she could feel the length of him within her. There was no space between them, and the wanting turned to needing as she bucked her hips up against him. She tightened around him, watched him tremble again. The flowers on his chest and the dragon and tiger rippled as if alive. He pulled back slightly; she felt the unwanted absence and arched her hips to follow him.

“You look good between my legs,” she managed, delighted as his body tensed. He plunged back into her, just rough enough to feel good but not enough to overwhelm her. His hands skimmed her ribs and she sucked in a breath at the pain-pleasure mix. She lifted up, wanting more but not having the words to ask, and he flashed her a knowing smile. He caressed her bruises, and they found a rhythm as she dug her heels into his lower back, marked him with her nails. It wasn’t perfect - elbows knocked, heads bumped, first times were never perfect - but it felt good, and that’s what mattered.

His hands were everywhere at once. She couldn’t keep from crying out, her body thrumming with the constant contact. They sped up, his thrusting harder and deeper, pressing her down into the mattress and pillows. Her hands dug into the muscle of his thighs or shoulders, trying to show her pleasure with touch, match it with her voice calling out encouragements. Her ribs began to complain, but it was worth it for the pleasure building deep in her belly and curling up her spine and into her legs. Her legs tightened against him and her hands reached up, grabbing at him, nails dragging down his arms and chest because fuck the consequences, and she swore the moan he made was timed too right for anything but telepathy.

Kenshi dropped down, bracketing her with his arms, and pressed his mouth to her good shoulder. He sucked the skin in and made a line of red marks down her chest, adding a half-dozen small bruises to her collection. His breathing was hot and ragged against her, and the roll of her hips matched the pounding of his. Her words became moans and sighs as she lost the ability for more than monosyllables and groans of pleasure. He brushed fingers over her clit rhythmically, and that was enough.

She cried out as the pulse of orgasm rushed through her, catching her by surprise. Every muscle in her body went taut, toes curling almost in on themselves with the force of it. He followed her a few moments later, pressing his body across her as much as he could manage, their mouths crashing together again, wet and graceless. She could feel his cock jerk in her, and then a shaky breath as she tightened around him deliberately to feel him shudder and twitch inside her. They were sticky with sweat and mingled fluids, and her bruises hurt, but if this was what it was like, she could get used to fucking a telepath.

“Does this count,” he panted, holding his body above hers, “as my hazard pay?”

“Depends. Was this boss and employee, or friends?” Her eyes searched his face for any microexpressions, anything to give her a clue.

“Am I supposed to know how my friend tastes?” He rocked his hips, sending a tremor through her body again. She deliberately clenched her inner muscles, watched his body shudder.

“Well, you’re sure as hell not supposed to be balls deep in your boss.” She brushed her hair away from both their faces. He muffled a laugh against the curve of her neck.

“Then friends, then. Which means I still get my hazard pay.” She smacked him in the hip and lay back limp against the pillows, fingers brushing lazily against his back. He kissed her, long, slow, and satisfied.

“Fucking telepath.”

And she was content.


	7. Puzzle Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Please check the end notes for a specific possible trigger tag.

Two showers - pointedly separate - later, Sonya’s doorbell rang. She’d eaten little, focused more on the strange sensation of guilt and the beginning gnawing question about ethics at her stomach. The idea of eating anything substantial was risky. She opened the door to Stryker and Jax, the latter with a bag and the former what looked like an accordion file folder. The two stepped inside her apartment, and the space suddenly felt terribly small and tight with four people in it. None of her guests were small men, and she was no delicate bloom to take up less than the space she deserved, either.

She settled herself at one end of the couch and tugged a few things off the coffee table for their impromptu meeting. Jax took a moment to look her over, a head-to-toe slow look that would have felt erotic in a club or with a lover nothing more than a clinical analysis, maybe tinged with concern for a friend. He stepped back and dropped into a chair, Stryker making himself easily at home and hunting out water glasses for all of them.

“You’ve only been here - what, three times?” Sonya raised an eyebrow. “Surprised you remember where everything is.”

“You don’t have much in here, and I’ve been in enough apartments to be able to make a pretty good guess where someone keeps cups.” He filled them and returned, carefully balancing four glasses in his hands, and set them down. “Where’s our fourth? Getting a ride over?”

“He crashed here last night, he’s making himself decent.” Sonya picked up a glass and eyed it for a few moments before she took a drink.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” She met Stryker’s eyes. “Much like you have in the past.”

“Hope the couch was kinder to him than me.”

“You’re built like a brick shithouse. It’s not intended to be slept on without pulling it out.” She leaned back against the arm.

“I was too damn tired,” he responded. “Figuring out a pull-out couch when you’re asleep on your feet is more trouble than it’s worth.” He settled down next to her on the couch. “So the guy who got away got away, but we think we got ID on him from-“

“Hold up there,” Jax said, raising a hand. “Wait til Kenshi’s out here, then we’ll just go over it all in one pass so we don’t have to do this twice.” He looked to Sonya, and looked her over. “You look like you had a shit night, you know that? Ought to talk to someone.”

“Well, my boss is an asshole with no respect for privacy, called me when I’d only gotten four hours of sleep and I’m supposed to be on medical leave.” She raised an eyebrow, and Jax grinned at her. “Can’t call my best friend and complain about my boss, because, oh, wait. _It’s the same asshole._ ”

“We’re an ethics commission’s worst nightmare. Hell, half the time we’re my own worst nightmare. Never been so grateful for having subordinates and people I didn’t know. You’re my best friend, my subordinate - barely - and my best officer. Agent. Whatever the hell you are now.” Jax mimed a swing at her. “Just don’t go corrupt and require a government investigative committee, alright? The only thing that could make this worse was if we were sleeping together.”

“I love you,” she told him seriously, “but you’re like a brother. Not gonna ever go there. Vera’s welcome to you.” A little of the gnawing in her stomach and chest eased when he brought up the ethics clusterfuck; he knew how much of a nightmare they all were.

“And God save anyone you take to your bed,” Jax snorted while she flipped him the middle finger. “You’ll break them - either with those legs or the stunts you pull.”

“The stunts I pull?” She almost pushed off the couch with indignation.

“I ‘member this one time, you were all tied up in Outworld-“

“Kenshi,” she called loudly, “can you blow someone’s brains out with your telepathy? I have a request to make. It comes with a promotion.”

“I will decline the promotion,” the swordsman said, walking out from the hallway, “but the other part is possible. Has the sibling rivalry finally gone too far?” Her eyes caught how deliberately he tugged his sleeves down, eyes behind his sunglasses even amongst the small group. She had a moment of realization as to just how vulnerable he had made himself to her. He paused, keeping one hand out, and letting it find the back of a chair. He eased himself into it; he must be feeling stiff, she thought idly, how carefully he moved.

Jax’s eyes flicked quickly between Sonya and Kenshi, and then he looked back at her as he took the last chair, spreading out a pile of papers and photos on the table. Had he guessed?He met Stryker and Sonya’s eyes in turn.

“So what we’ve got is pretty straightforward. Yakuza out of Japan trying to build up their connections here in California for drugs and weapons and other things. Our Black Dragon buddy in holding,” Jax nodded to Kenshi, “says they got approached a couple weeks back to try to get a deal together for some guns, since those are hard to get in Japan. They also asked for some other Black Dragon tech for a new project they’re involved in.”

“The beam emitters.” Sonya declared. Jax nodded in her direction.

“So they get the gear together and get ready to sell it. Then they get the bright idea that maybe it’d be easier if they didn’t sell it, and could just get the cash and then turn it over again. Paid twice for the same box,” Jax continued. “Didn’t clear it with the higher-ups, especially because it sounds like the beam emitters are hard to get ahold of. Those came in from out of town.”

“Okay.” Sonya looked at the table, and then sidelong at Stryker. Kurtis looked like he’d swallowed something awful and didn’t want to offend. It was a soldier keeping his mouth shut around something he didn’t like. His cheeks puffed out a bit, and he pointedly took a drink.

“Before we go much farther,” Kenshi said smoothly, “there’s something I would like to make sure everyone is aware of.”

“This what we talked about?” Sonya raised both brows in his direction.

“Over breakfast, yes.” He nodded, and she looked to Jax and Stryker.

“It’s important.”

Jax motioned with a hand. “Go for it.”

“Years ago,” Kenshi said, launching in immediately, “I was a member of one of the yakuza groups. I am no longer. I left… not precisely on good terms, but neither on bad ones. I have not been formally excommunicated; I think they simply believe I am dead, given all the things that have happened.”

“How you manage to remain covert,” Stryker said sourly, expression twisting more unpleasantly “I have no idea.” He rubbed the back of his head and hunched forward a bit in his chair. “So you’ve got ties to these guys?”

“Not their group specifically, no. Or as far as I know. There are some organizations who have dealings with America, and some who are committed to Asia. I don’t know if it’s my old group or one of their… offshoots. I have not had dealings with them in well over a decade. They are complicated, both in individual hierarchy and relations to one another. Families form up into syndicates, and they periodically merge and schism, change alliances…”

“We’ve been fucked by moles before.” Stryker jabbed a finger at Kenshi. “I’m not happy. You should have been up front about this, man. You know what’s happened for the rest of us. Sonya, me, Jax-“ He broke off and shook his head. “Didn’t it cross your mind to maybe say something in the back lot as we were cleaning up bodies? Or, you know, at any fucking point since you joined us?”

“He tried to tell me,” Sonya interceded. “The night before shit hit the fan. I put him off. And he told me over breakfast this morning, cleared the air. Raiden and Fujin trust him on this, I’m willing to as well.”

“Yeah, and Kabal said he was done with the Black Dragon. And we saw what happened. The minute shit hit the fan, and he got dragged off - he was back in with them, if he was ever out of the fold at all. Kano got him fixed up good by some back-alley surgeon, and then over into Shang Tsung’s Flesh Pits and all the magic bullshit of Outworld. You got fucked over by Kano…” Stryker pointed at Sonya with a blunt finger. “I need to go on record as saying I don’t like this. If he’s going to keep secrets, like being an ex-gangster, and it just so happens to be relevant just when those guys start dealing with our known enemy?” He shook his head again, a single sharp jerk of anger. “I don’t like it.”

Jax’s expression was inscrutable. “Noted. I’m gonna side with Sonya on this one, though.”

“Didn’t expect you to say anything different, but I have to be on the record.” Stryker sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Alright. So I got some ID info back, and they’re part of a bunch that’s making moves in LA and in New York, too. Some of my organized crime buddies are putting together a brief for me on this, but it’s not in yet. But it gets worse.” He pulled out a folder and handed it to Sonya. Something about the gesture made her think he hated it, or whatever was in it. “This was in the box with the emitters.”

She opened the plain manila folder, and it became very clear very quickly.

Headshots, a dozen of them, of young women who she hoped to hell were legal. “These are girls. Or - young women, at least.” They all had wide, terrified eyes as they stared straight into the camera. There was something about them that was familiar but she couldn’t quite pin down. Something in the eyes, or in the shape of their faces? She looked over them for identifying marks, but they all had some kind of odd shirt on. The neckline was cut the same way, the closures up near the throat reminding her of something but it wouldn’t come clear.

“Yeah.” Jax’s voice was hard and cold. “Guy in holding won’t talk - Kenshi, I want you in there, want you in his brain until it melts out his ears, to figure out what the fuck is going on.”

“You should usually lead with ‘Sonya, the Black Dragon are into human trafficking in town’. It’s called burying the _fucking_ lede.” Sonya looked to Stryker and Jax as her heartbeat pounded. “The fuck is this? They’re shipping girls to the yakuza?”

“We don’t know. Guy won’t say a word,” Jax said. “I tried, Stryker tried, we decided before we went to anything chemical that we’d let the telepath on payroll check it out. He says he doesn’t know shit about it, but it’s hard to tell.”

“Figured we’d fake him out,” Stryker said lazily, but Sonya could tell the gleam in his eye meant his mind was working in overdrive. “Just like back in the PD. Set him up to think one thing - lie detector test, or truth serum, or just getting beat the hell up. But get Kenshi behind the glass and go through his mind instead.”

“I’ll do it.” Jax, Stryker, and Sonya all seemed surprised by the firmness in Kenshi’s voice, exchanging quick looks. “I’ll come in this afternoon, once we’re done here.”

“Glad to hear it,” Stryker said, voice almost breaking under tension. Sonya sat and wondered what had wound him up so much. He’d been in New York for so long - there might be something there, something she didn’t know. Human trafficking was shit - it was downright fucking terrible, and she and Jax had managed to break up a few Black Dragon arrangements that involved people. But it wasn’t always clean-cut and easy, and the Black Dragon had their fingers in a hundred pies, and they were too fucking good at getting everything -

“Sonya, breathe. I can hear you grinding your teeth from here.” Jax leaned across Stryker, taking the folder and the staring wide-eyed faces from her. “You were right this morning when you said we needed to see how this shook out. Our guess is that this was supposed to be from the… main office to the yakuza, a trade that the local Dragon weren’t supposed to know about. It was in the beam emitters, and those were the things that the locals wanted to keep. It would have made sense for it to be in the guns if the locals were setting it up.”

“So we’ve got the Black Dragon making covert arrangements for human smuggling with a yakuza group. Yakuza are setting something up with beam emitters, and guns, and getting a foothold in California and New York.” Kenshi leaned forward, taking a glass of water carefully in his grip and taking a sip.

“Why the fuck haven’t we put someone on a plane to Japan yet?” She was surprised by the venom in her own voice, the anger and frustration.

“Gotta see how it shakes out. We can’t leap on it too fast or we’ll risk losing everything.” Stryker reached over, and put a restraining hand on her leg. “Look, Sonya, I want to get these guys. You do, Jax does, and I’m pretty sure Kenshi does from the look on his face. We just can’t jump in right now or we’ll blow it.”

Their conversation continued, but Sonya’s mind was doing cartwheels and her body pulsed with frustration and tension and anger. She wanted to be out _now_ , doing things _now_ , shaking down every Black Dragon they could find and taking them apart joint by joint until they led her up the chain to whoever was getting these women, whatever they were planning with them. She clenched her fingers into fists, forced herself to relax them, and found them curled up again. Kenshi and Jax and Stryker talked, and she let them, her mind consumed by what she was going to do, and who she was going to do it to, and just how precisely she could break bones. How far up the chain did this go? Was it Kabal’s project? Was it Kano’s? Was it someone else’s?

She shook herself out of the obsessive contemplative spiral when she heard her name.

“Are you sure? Shouldn’t we send Stryker along?” Jax was staring at Kenshi, and was obviously surprised when the other man shook his head.

“Stryker is nothing but a law enforcement officer, through and through. He looks like a police officer, and the yakuza will identify him as such immediately. Sonya - and forgive my bluntness - looks very much what the illicit sex industry fantasizes about. She’ll play precisely into expectations of a stupid blonde foreigner. She will be able to pretend to bungle into places she shouldn’t be, gather information, and either escape by virtue of her charms or her physical prowess.”

“I think I should be offended by that.” Sonya glowered from her chair, unsure as to why she was suddenly being discussed as if she wasn’t present. “No, I _am_ offended by that.”

“They will seek me out - both the old group I was part of, and others who may either want to curry favor with them or find out what I know. I would not be surprised to find out there was a price on my head,” Kenshi continued blithely.

“So he’s a risk,” Stryker pointed out, leaning forward. “Seems like an even better idea to keep out of it and just deal with what’s going on over here. Stop the girls from getting out there, wherever they’re coming from. Don’t bite off more than we can chew with this - work the operation from this end.”

“I don’t think so.” Sonya shook her head, end of her ponytail bobbing, and she forced herself to release the tension in her jaw. “You stay here, work that angle, but someone has to go over there. And apparently I look like a stereotype that I’ll be an easy sell as eye candy.”

“Just as long as you’re not easy.” Jax pushed a few pieces of paper around on the table. “Americans don’t need visas for Japan, and as long as you keep a low profile, we can be all sneaky about it, not get anyone involved to make this some international bullshit. Or we can inform the local cops like we used to, back in the day…”

Sonya tried to piece together the conversation she’d ignored. “So. Do I understand this right? Stryker stays here, handles the Black Dragon angle, and I go over to Japan and poke at the yakuza with a stick.”

“You and Kenshi,” Jax corrected. “You really weren’t paying attention, were you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “He’ll go reconnect with his old bunch, you’re going along as backup and as arm candy. The two of you should be able to ferret out something. Need you in as soon as you’re medically cleared - which means you’ve at least got tomorrow off, Blade, suck it up - and then we’ll get this op rolling. Between needing IDs in, plane tickets and other arrangements, don’t see you moving out of the US for another week or so.”

She stood up, collecting glasses and walking to the kitchen to refill them, her legs feeling strangely unsteady. “So we’re gonna need to do logistics on this then. We’re just going to go over there and see what we can see?” She passed a glass to Kenshi, to Stryker, to Jax, and then cradled hers between her palms, wishing she’d filled it with rum or vodka instead of water. She remained standing, shifting her weight between her feet. “How much discretion are we going to have?”

“As much as you’re going to need. Not going to have a hell of a lot of budget, so better pick a cover story that isn’t being a high roller,” Jax told her, rolling his shoulders. “We can get you geared up, get some cash in hand, room reservations for the first few days til you figure out what your next steps are. If you’re gonna travel, don’t want to have booked a week in Tokyo and you need to go to Nagasaki or something.”

“Makes sense. I’ll get together with Takahashi and we’ll go over how this should run. You guys take him, do the interrogation with the Black Dragon, and we can go over it when I’m back in the office the day after.” Sonya chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Work for you?”

“Or I can come by again after I have finished on-site,” Kenshi suggested, and she worked very hard to keep her expression neutral. “The longer we have time to discuss this, formulate a better plan than ‘get ‘em’, the better.”

“Don’t give her ideas. She’ll spend the next couple of days writing an entire playbook.” Jax ran a hand through his close-cropped curls. “Alright. Sounds about enough for now, don’t want to try to make too many plans before we see how this shakes out. I’ll see what tech I can put together, what R&D has coming along I can play with.”

“Boys and their toys.”

“Hey, communicators and portal tech are things we need,” he said, pointing a gleaming finger at her. “And they’re my projects.”

“Don’t remind me.”

There was a heavy pause, interrupted by the sound of her doorbell. The ringing startled all of them, everyone shifting into an alert position. Sonya frowned, walking towards the doorway.

“Sonya Blade, you get your ass out here this minute. I am going to have words with you,” a voice called from the other side of the door. Sonya grinned, relaxing, even as she watched Jax tense up further.

“You know Vera planning on stopping by?” Jax’s voice caught a little, and Sonya grinned more.

“Nope, but I’m letting her in.” Her hand closed on the handle and she opened slowly. “Hello, _Doctor_ Adeyemi.” She stressed the title as she pulled the door the rest of the way. “Careful, please - I’m damaged goods.” Sonya laughed slightly, carefully embracing her friend. The dark-skinned woman stepped inside, looked at Sonya’s occupied couch and the coffee table covered in papers, and raised an impeccable eyebrow. She had a large cotton tote bag in one hand, and what looked like a small duffel bag in the other.

“You’re always damaged goods, woman. It’s when you’re not that I get worried.” She stepped back, looking Sonya over and frowning a bit, before looking at the rest of the room’s occupants. “I know you said you were having a meeting, but I didn’t realize it meant you were having everyone over. I think I feel left out.” Her eyes settled on Jax, and looked him over from head to toe. Sonya was almost certain she could see him flush at the blatant visual examination. She turned back to Sonya, box braids swinging. “Heard you got a bit banged up.”

“Vera,” Jax said, clearing his throat and nodding at her politely.

“Jax.” Vera’s eyes took on a warmth and heat; maybe they should let Jax and Vera have the room and finish this meeting later.

“Yeah,” Sonya said, turning to look at the three men. “Blame them.”

“I know better,” Vera said. “You probably ran in headlong and one of these poor idiots had to pull your ass out of the fire.” She walked to Sonya’s kitchen with the familiar steps of a regular visitor, and set the bags down. “Brought you dinner, and we’re sitting down tonight to watch chick flicks and paint nails and gossip.”

“Gossip?” Jax stood up and raised both eyebrows. “I don’t ever think I’ve heard Sonya gossip. And I’m not sure I want to know what you two are going to talk about.”

“Jackson Briggs, you have no idea what women get up to if you’re not around. Newsflash, it’s not all about you. The rest of you, get out of here. I want time with my friend.” Vera put her hands on her hips, and stared at them all.

“We’re finishing up something,” Sonya started, but Vera shook her head.

“Nope. You’re done. You can all finish this up tomorrow, but this girl is mine tonight until we fall asleep on the couch watching chick flicks and eating popcorn.”

“We brought you food…” Jax pointed at the bag he and Stryker had brought, as the briefing materials were tucked back into the accordion folder. “And the day the two of you watch The Notebook and paint your nails is the day I-”

Vera reached into one bag and pulled out a plastic zip-top bag full of nail lacquer, smiling wickedly, and Sonya was pretty sure she could hear Jax’s teeth click as he closed his mouth.

“You were saying?”

“Thinking better of it.”

“So, how’s it feel to be a doctor now?” Sonya sank down onto her vacated couch, tucking herself up into a corner once more.

“Like I’m an impostor,” Vera admitted as she sat down on the other end. “I busted my butt something fierce to get into that program, do the projects, write the damn thesis, defend it…”

“I admire the hell out of you. I’ll take a covert op - or an alleyway brawl - over defending a doctoral thesis. All that academic stuff terrifies me.”

“Well, I did it, and now I can snap at everyone when they try to Miss Adeyemi me.” Vera’s teeth flashed in a big, satisfied smile. “Just in time, too. Our firm submitted a bid for something, and it got accepted. I’m on the team for it.”

“Oh, did it? That’s great!” Sonya’s happiness was genuine. “Details, now.”

Vera nodded excitedly, pulling the bag of nail polish out once more. “Damn right. There’s a company in Las Vegas. A new casino in plans for construction, and we scored it. I’m not lead, but I’m involved. Thesis was on the effects of environment on pedestrian activities, and looks like it may translate well into helping plan out the new breed of integrated hotel-resort-casino things popping up.” She opened the polish bag, proffering it to Sonya. “You’re off for a couple of days - red, green, something else?”

“Red,” Sonya said, leaning forward and hissing as her muscles complained. “Damn it.”

“Well, you’re booked tonight, and then tomorrow I’m supposed to be going into the office in the morning for a planning meeting, but I’m free tomorrow night. We should do something again. Not often you’re off and I can get you for more than a couple of hours.” Vera narrowed her eyes, plucking a jar of dark pink polish out of the bag. “But. Been invited to Vegas for a meeting this weekend. If you think you can get the time off…” She grinned. “We can go have a little fun.”

“I’m tempted.” Sonya shook the nail polish. “Don’t have anything to wear to Vegas, though. Sure as shit not wearing my service uniform, and you won’t be seen dead with me in Vegas in jeans and a tee shirt.”

“Which is all you own. What do you even spend that damn OIA paycheck on?”

“My mattress. My bathtub.”

“You need a life.”

“Among other things. But I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to Vegas, Vera, no matter how fun that might be. There’s something - complicated - going on. You go, you have your meeting, maybe when I’m back we can go do something. May even have plans tomorrow night with Kenshi, hashing something out.”

“This something involves a trip then, huh? Is that why you all were looking so…” she gestured as she looked for a word. “Serious isn’t it. Just… distracted, occupied. Eh.” She shrugged.

“Yeah, there’s a trip.” She grabbed a tissue and began to rub at her nails. “Gotta do a little playing dress-up for it.”

“Oh, so wearing camouflage pants and a thong hiked up over your hips won’t cut it?”

Sonya gave Vera a dirty look, narrowing her eyes and extending a middle finger. “Says the woman who lives in jeans and flannels and lives on a farm.”

“Love you too, blondie. So does this mean we can do some shopping that doesn’t involve matching a dress to a thigh holster?”

“You know me too well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter contains discussion of human trafficking. This will be a topic continued throughout the fic, but there will absolutely *not* be any nonconsensual sex depicted in this fic. At no point will there be descriptions or fade to blacks of any nonconsensual sexual interactions/intercourse in this work. That is not my jam and I will not be writing it.


	8. Fragile Disguise

“Come on, let me see it.” Vera coaxed through the dressing room door.

“I feel like I’m half-naked. How the hell do you wear something like this?”

“Can’t be as bad as that black and pink thing, Blade. Out, do a twirl. Same as we’ve been doing for the last hour.”

“I hate you more than a little right now.”

“It’s the last one, but I’ve got eyes for the good stuff.”

“I’m relying on it.” Sonya pushed open the dressing room door and turned in a circle for Vera. The champagne satin and silver sequined dress glittered and flashed bright lights back around the room. 

“That’s good… That’s really good. Not a lot of cleavage but all that leg.” Vera clicked her tongue a few times. “Pop you in some nude heels, make those legs even longer. Just remember not to bend over and you’ll be fine.” She pursed her lips, circling Sonya like she was on display. Sonya had flashbacks to a few days earlier and her own circling of Kenshi. Vera sighed. “He better appreciate this.”

“How does it feel?” Sonya stepped over to Vera, who ran the front and back of her hand over the dress, slinging her arm around the blonde’s waist.

“Sequins feel a little strange, but not rough. Might be fun to play with, honestly. Nothing jabbing or poking. A little like the velvet - weird, but good. He should be fine with it.” Vera ran a hand up the satin from hem to armpit, and then the sequined center panel that ran up to the higher neckline. “Yeah, nothing’s out of place, no real poky bits. It’s coming home with you.” She nudged Sonya back into the changing room stall.

“We’ve spent half the day doing this. I’m not going to play dress-up, I’m going for work,” Sonya stressed, reaching behind her and wriggling out of the dress. “This is not the kind of mission I prefer.”

“You can still come to Vegas with me tomorrow, split the drive,” Vera wheedled from the other side of the door, and Sonya was grateful she couldn’t see her friend’s face. “You’d get to wear this stuff more than once, maybe meet a nice guy. Or girl, I’m not judgy.” Sonya didn’t respond as she pulled her pants and shirt back on, flipping her hair back out of the close-fitting collar. “And I’m getting the VIP treatment. Suite and shown around and all for business, and then there’s a good time to be had by all after the meetings are over.”

Sonya hung the dress back up on the hangar, smoothing out the sequins. It _was_ pretty, silver and a paler almost champagne satin along the sides. And she did look good in it - damn good, with her hair down. The price tag nearly made her choke. Maybe a little fun at the slots or poker and she’d make the dress back. She fingered the satin herself, slid her hand sideways across the sequins, imagining how it would feel with the pressure of Kenshi’s hand on her, and she tried to ignore the throb that pulsed through her unbidden. Hell, depending on how things went, he might not even touch her - Japanese people were apparently notoriously disapproving of PDA, and she had no idea how yakuza would be.

She was exhausted from the hours she’d spent trying to find something she didn’t feel like a trophy girlfriend in. Combined with her requirement that everything be texturally inoffensive, if not pleasant, it had been a frustrating morning.

“Wish I could, but Takahashi and I need to meet so I don’t make a complete ass out of myself.” She finished dressing and collected the rest of her things. She draped the dress over her arm and pushed open the door. “I’m supposed to meet him for dinner tomorrow. I should call him, actually, make sure it’s still on.”

“You call and pay, I’ll run down the street to that good burger place and grab us a table.” Vera eyed Sonya, something glinting in her dark brown eyes. “You sure he’s blind?”

“Hundred percent. Why do you keep asking?”

“He has no idea how spoiled he is.”

“I’m sure you’ll tell him all about it next time we’re at the bar.”

Bag clutched in her fist, Sonya made it halfway down the block before she heard a voice she recognized, calling her name. She had an opportunity to ignore it, and so she did, her attention shifting wholly to where Vera stood outside the restaurant.

“Got us a table?”

Vera looked at Sonya, then over her shoulder. “Waiting, they said maybe five minutes. Behind you - isn’t that Cage?”

“I was hoping to ignore him. You didn’t make eye contact, did you?” Vera’s expression flickered just enough for Sonya to know she had. “Damn it. He’s the last person I wanted to deal with right now.”

“Well, he’s got your pretend boyfriend with him, so looks like today was the stylish people shopping for you clueless ones.” Vera smirked at her. “Unless, you know, they’re a thing.”

“I don’t think they’re involved,” Sonya said after a pause, “but stranger things have happened.”

“Sonya!” Cage’s voice carried and she couldn’t ignore it now, so she pivoted on her heel. There he was in all his Hollywood glory - thank God with a shirt on - and the trademark sunglasses. He threw a big, bright smile at the two women; if it had been anyone else, she might have cared. But Vera was very thoroughly entangled with Jax, and Sonya’s attention was on the man beside him. Kenshi kept pace, covered as always, except now she knew what that secret was. Maybe that was part of why they were friends - with Johnny around running commentary, he attracted most of the attention. It was easier to be unnoticed if you were with him. The corner of Kenshi’s mouth tipped up in a tiny smile for a brief moment as if acknowledging the thought. She was going to have to have words with him about mindreading.

“Sonya, I’ve been calling your name for a block.” Johnny sounded vaguely put out, and reached to give her a hug. She sidestepped it and glowered.

“I’ve had a hell of a morning and was looking forward to lunch with Vera.”

“You two out shopping?”

“Yeah. Got a work thing coming up.” Her eyes flicked to Kenshi, then back to Cage.

“Kenshi told me. Needed a little fashion consult.” Johnny wiggled his fingers, and Sonya groaned. “Well, we were going to call for a break ourselves. And I mean, I can always find the time to take two lovely ladies out for a meal. Food’s on me,” Cage said with a wave of his hand. She didn’t like the idea of taking his charity - she had a job, money she earned, she could buy her own lunch. And Vera’s, too.

“We’ve got plans,” Sonya said, her hand reaching out and gripping firmly at Vera’s. “Sorry.”

“Oh.” He paused and took a step back. “Oh. Is that why you’d never go out with me, Sonya? Don’t ask, don’t tell? You two…?” Vera groaned.

“No. She’s my friend. And I’m dating her best friend.” Vera squeezed Sonya’s hand, eyeing Johnny. “I’m off the market.”

“Whoa, whoa. You’re dating Jax?” Johnny’s eyes went wide behind the sunglasses, enough that Sonya could see his eyebrows raise. “I take it back, you are nothing but the most-“

“But if she asked, maybe I would.”

Johnny whined, looking between the two women and their shared grin.

“That’s just unfair.”

“And that’s why she’s my friend.” Sonya leaned over and pressed a kiss to Vera’s cheek. “Are we letting them join us for lunch, then?”

“He looks like a kicked puppy, Sonya. I can’t say no.”

Over burgers and fries and egregiously large milkshakes, Sonya and Kenshi explained - couched in the most careful and generic of terms - the cliched pretend relationship for the operation.

“Jax is a bastard,” Vera said in a tone that could have been chastising or admiring; Sonya was not entirely certain.

“It’s a good plot, though. You’ve got enough going on in the B-plot that you can make it work. She’s committed to work, he’s… maybe not blind, let’s say emotionally damaged from death of his one true love that’s somehow his fault. They’re the two best suited so they get sent off to go infiltrate some gang. They can’t stand each other, and then you have them save the day and become less emotionally fucked up.” Johnny picked up his drink and sipped it, twirling the little umbrella between his fingers. “Not bad. Might borrow it.”

“If it was stunted maturation, you wouldn’t even need to act the part.” Sonya scowled across the table. “But you wear your heart on your sleeve. Or your dick on your sleeve, I can’t decide which.”

“Nope, did the marriage thing once. Not doing that again.” Johnny held up a hand. “Vegas is great for some things, terrible for others, and Cindy was definitely a terrible choice. But seriously, you two should be able to handle this. It’s just people, right? Not like anyone’s getting tied up in an Outworld arena or anything.”

Sonya’s cheeks burned at the memory of her humiliation, and turned her attention very determinedly towards the food in front of her.

“We got Kenshi taken care of today, except a couple of custom things that will take a few more days to get finished,” Johnny said smoothly, “so I can promise you at least you’ll have something nice to look at.”

Sonya stifled an indignant sound. Did even _Cage_ know about the ink before she had? She looked across at Kenshi, for any sign from him, thinking as loudly as she could. There was, maybe, a slightly apologetic rise and fall of his shoulders, and she tried to resist the urge to reach across the table and choke him.

“You get anything good, Sonya?”

“Yes. Apparently I needed Vera to make sure it went beyond camo pants and half-shirts.”

“Awww.” Johnny made an exaggeratedly disappointed look. “Any chance at getting a fashion show?” She crossed her arms, and he winced. “If looks could kill. Gotcha.”

“She’ll look good,” Vera said with satisfaction. “I made sure of that.” She turned to Kenshi. “Almost think she’s wasting it on you, for work.”

“Not because I’m blind?”

“You being blind,” she said bluntly, “means she spent more than thirty seconds on something. She paid attention to texture.” Vera shrugged, pointing at Sonya with her chin. “Normally shopping with her is wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am. This was hours of ‘how’s it feel?’, not just ‘how’s it look?’. If you have to touch her, she made sure it’s nothing that should bother you. I kept having to pet her like a cat to make sure it all felt okay. You got a problem with any of it, complain to me.”

“Understood.” Kenshi’s voice was carefully neutral. “I have no doubt that between the two of you, it will be more than adequate.”

“Lighten up, man. You sound like getting near her is going to be torture. You’re supposed to like each other, right? Look, I’ve never really gone in for the method acting thing, but you’ve got to pretend at least that you two like each other, not that it’s a job.” Johnny gestured broadly with a fry. “Go out on a date or something. You need to know how he takes his coffee and if he gets dressed shirt first or pants first, and you’ve got to know where her waist is to give her a hug, without thinking about it. Maybe even order for her in a restaurant. Can she use chopsticks? The two of you are sitting so far apart right now it’s like you hate each other. If you’re taking her home, you need to look like it’s serious.”

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I agree with Cage.” Vera gave Sonya an apologetic look. “You two ought to go out somewhere and do a thing. Right now you’re all work no play and that won’t get you far.”

“Traitor.” Sonya tore off a piece of her hamburger bun and began to shred it into crumbs with her fingers. “I’m not a teenager, I don’t need a guide on first dates. We’ve got a week and change and a twelve-hour flight before we have to start this show.” She was resolutely not thinking about the fact that he knew what she tasted like.

“You’re going to actually have to let him touch you at some point, Sonya. Go… I don’t know. On a roller coaster or for a walk on a beach or something.” Johnny waved a hand. “I’d say go for drinks and dancing at a club but that’s for normal people who relax.Also way too loud for him. But even I can tell you’re not comfortable with each other, and if you’re going to have any hope of looking like you’re dating, and not like she’s doing it for cash, you’ve got to figure out how to get cozy.”

“So fucking helpful, Cage.”

“He’s got a point, Sonya.” Vera pointed with her fork. “Maybe I ought to see if Jax wants to do something tonight. We can double date. And since it’d actually be a work thing, you could expense it. Make the government pay for a round or two.”

“Fuck no,” Sonya swore, pushing away from the table. “No. We’ve already got a business dinner tomorrow - as weird as saying _that_ sounds. I’m not turning it into a pretend date. Not with my best friend, not with my girlfriend, not with my coworkers, no. C’mon, back me up on this, Kenshi. It’s a job.” She looked across to where he sat, expression almost unreadable behind his sunglasses.

“We’re working together,” he said evenly, “and what happens on the job stays on the job. Our personal lives are personal. We will manage this without any interference from outside parties.”

No, they had enough ability to fuck this up on their own. They definitely didn’t need any help.

They went their separate ways after lunch, Sonya and Kenshi maintaining the professional cordiality that seemed to be working. She sank onto her couch when she returned home, allowing herself a few moments to collect herself before she moved onto the next problem to tackle. Tonight she had a reprieve due to a schedule shift for Vera, and tomorrow was planning with Kenshi, a strictly business-related meal, in public. Vera’s own morning meeting had been pushed off and her schedule adjusted, and Sonya’s free day had been abruptly filled with shopping and the run-in with Kenshi and Cage. She did not like her schedule being changed. She very much loved her regular routine, and the wreck that had been made of it since that stakeout had put her on edge. It had been over forty-eight hours since the moment that would be forever labeled in her head as The Incident, and she and Kenshi hadn’t talked about it since.

Which was, really, just how Sonya liked it. She still hadn’t figured out what she thought of the whole thing, aside from the fact that she’d really liked getting her hands on him, and if he wasn’t her coworker, she probably would have been angling for a repeat performance. The whole idea of suddenly being a pretend couple - with all the other things at stake now - threw a whole new level of complexity onto it.

Kenshi had gone back to OIA with Jax and Stryker after their meeting; this morning, she’d been notified about an audio file to listen to. The recording of Kenshi’s monologue as he did a thorough mental scan and dive into their prisoner hadn’t seemed like the kind of thing to put on while Vera was around. She busied herself with the audio, listening to the interrogation - or Kenshi’s commentary, at any rate. It was the longest she’d ever heard him speak as he said what he was sensing, seeing, picking up, whatever the words should be, from the thug’s mind. She filed some useful tidbits away - that the local Black Dragon had been dealing with Kabal, not Kano - no one in this area had seen or heard from Kano in over a year, but he was apparently still running things. North America was Kabal’s, and there was the implication that Kabal was handling a lot more than even this grunt knew. The connection with the yakuza was important - but not so important that he felt it wasn’t worth risking for a little extra cash.

Kenshi was waiting for her outside the restaurant when she arrived that evening, and Sonya swallowed, feeling her heartbeat tick up slightly despite herself. He’d dressed up; if he’d been nice to look at before, now he was just rubbing her nose in it. A dark blue suit, white shirt, and the top two buttons of the shirt undone, and all she could see was pristine unmarked skin. The suit fit him perfectly. It had to be something tailored for him, because nobody ever got anything off the rack that looked that good, not even someone with Cage as a connection. Kenshi’s eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, but at the sound of her stride, he seemed to straighten up as he turned to face her.

“Did you seriously pick me out by my footsteps?”

“And your general sense of irritation,” he replied, dipping his chin with a grin. “You always walk with purpose. It’s a particular sense of speed, weight, and has a tendency for other people to move out of your way.”

“Jax calls it the murder walk.”

“It is apropos.” He pushed open the door to the restaurant, and she saw a neat array of shoes inside the door. Really going for the traditional feel, then. She slipped off her shoes as he did, and he set them neatly together. Kenshi led, speaking comfortably in Japanese with the host; she had rarely heard him speak the language, and it was almost like a switch was flipped with his animated dialogue. They were shown to a booth, Kenshi motioning her to the seat further from the door. She raised a brow at the subtle play of culture and hierarchy even she knew - he’d given her the better seat, the boost in status. She sat quietly, just watching as he ordered a pair of beers and a small collection of dishes, and hung his suit jacket up on a hook inside the booth.

“You come here regularly, don’t you?”

“Why do you think that?”

“You didn’t stop to ask where anything was, and they showed us straight to a table. And you also held a conversation in Japanese without dropping into any English, which means the waitstaff know you enough to not feel like they need to accommodate me.”

“Nothing gets past you.”

“Some things do.” She reached up to her hair, smoothed it back. “But I suppose I’ve got a little thing of my own I should share.” She leaned back in her seat, grateful for the benches. “As part of Special Forces, we learn a language or two. I grew up with a couple, but I picked up one during training I haven’t used in years.”

“How much of that order did you follow?”

“Not nearly as much as I should have, but I’m not going to be totally useless. Probably enough to sound like a girlfriend learning Japanese for her boyfriend. I understand more than I can speak, but my handwriting and reading is shot to hell. And I know a whole lot of the academic, but not so much the practical.”

“Is that to really be our cover, then?”

“What was your alternative, I’m a foreigner who overstayed her visa and now I’m your paid escort?” She snorted and narrowed her eyes. “Actually, don’t answer that.”

“Whatever you are most comfortable with.” He shrugged, fingers following the wood grain of the table. “I was not the one who proposed you going to Japan, particularly given the fact that we’d just shared a bed only hours before. You are in charge of setting the boundaries and terms for this operation.”

“You’ve got a say too, you know.” She poked him in the calf with her foot. “I’m lead, but you’re the subject matter expert, the local expert. So we’ve got to come to some kind of copacetic arrangement.”

“Everything behind the hotel room door is private and personal, and beyond that, it’s all for show unless otherwise discussed? ”

“Works for me.”

“Shit.” Sonya swore softly, nudging Kenshi under the table with a foot. “Hey, I think one of our guys is here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Guy just came in and I swear it looks like one of the guys from that clusterfuck of a transaction. He doesn’t look great, and there’s-”

“Let me - look. Give me your hand, please. It will be a distraction as to why I’m not talking if I’m instead-“

“Yeah, I got it.” She reached out a hand, letting him lace his fingers with hers, and he shifted slightly in the booth, ostensibly reaching out with his telepathy. His thumb brushed across her hand lazily, and she closed her eyes for a moment. This was just business. She moved her lips and murmured, and he raised an eyebrow.

“Are you reciting a manual to me?”

“Didn’t want to distract you, was pretty sure the process for field-stripping a M16 would go in one ear and out the other.”

“I would be very happy to listen to you read a phone book, or anything else you’d like to read,” he murmured, “but you were right. That is the one who got away. Are we cutting our dinner short to pursue him?”

“Do we need to?” She looked down at the half-finished plates in front of her, and the beer. “Is there any way you can get what you need out of him without revealing ourselves?”

“Are you unwell, Sonya? That is out of character.” She stuck her tongue out at him in a moment of childish pique, and he chuckled, squeezing her hand. “He’s here for a while, settling in in the private room. Yakuza are first and foremost businessmen. Not thugs like the Black Dragon. There is order and hierarchy and until rather recently, the yakuza would wear lapel pins announcing their affiliation. Things changed with new laws in Japan, but this will not be the same kind of approach.”

“So how are we doing this?” She slouched slightly in the booth. She tried to tug her hand away, but Kenshi held it fast; she picked up her beer with her other hand and took a drink.

“Let me eavesdrop as much as I can, and I will see about getting his identity from the waitstaff if we don’t hear it otherwise.”

She extracted her hand from Kenshi’s grasp and pulled her phone, sending a message to Jax and Stryker alike about the unintended connection to their mission. She set her phone on the table and picked up a piece of edamame with her free hand. “So I get to sit here and talk to myself. Great.” She busied herself with the beans and dropping the emptied pods in a bowl on the table, while he held her hand and occasionally murmured a response to her recitation of information about 25-meter grouping ranges. She wiped her fingers off on a napkin and forcibly extracted her hand from his very distracting grasp. She tore off a sheet from one of the ordering pads, picked up a pencil from the table, and began to write down the hiragana and katakana that she remembered.

“Give me your foot,” he said quietly, and she nearly snapped the pencil lead with surprise.

“Excuse me?”

“Please. You will need to trust me and go with what I ask in Japan, let this be a trial tonight.” Grudgingly, she lifted one foot up and rested it on his leg. “Thank you.”

“I have no clue what you’re planning, and I don’t like being in the dark.” She jabbed her heel into the meat of his thigh.

“I’ll explain it all afterward,” he said, picking up his beer and taking a drink, dropping one hand back into his lap and setting the beer awfully close, she thought, to the edge of the table. Abruptly he ran his nails across the sole of her foot. The sensation startled her, unexpected and deliberately ticklish. Her knee slammed up into the table by reflex, sending his glass into him and spilling beer on his shirt. She pulled her foot back quickly.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t-“ She clamped her mouth down on the apology at the little pull of a smile. “What are-“

“I will need to go try to wring this out in the men’s room,” he said with feigned umbrage, “unless you want me to come home reeking of beer.”

“Fine. I’ll settle the tab,” she responded, genuinely irritated. This they would have to discuss later. In-depth.

She made apologies to the waitstaff and paid their bill, planning on taking it out of Kenshi’s well-dressed hide later. Standing by the door, she hoped he had a good explanation as to why he’d made her spill a drink on him. He emerged almost fifteen minutes later, a fair bit drier but still reeking of beer, and a decidedly self-satisfied smile on his face.

“Talk about a way to end the evening. You don’t do anything by halves, do you?”

“Drive me home so I can get out of this, please.” He dropped his voice, and ran his fingers along her shoulder to her wrist, linking their hands proprietarily. “I will explain on the way. Humor me until we’re in your car. Then you can yell at me until we’re at my doorstep.”

She looked at him, shaking her head as her annoyance ticked up further. She walked with him, squeezing his hand so hard he let out a soft grunt, until they made it to her car. Once inside, she rounded on him.

“What did you just pull? And they say I’m the impulsive one.” She scowled, unwilling to begin driving. “You can’t pull that on me without telling me, giving me some kind of heads-up. You’re the telepath, I’m not.”

“You are not as good at dissembling as I am,” Kenshi said bluntly. “You can either look wholly serious or you have no mask at all. Your ability to be intentionally deceitful needs work.” He touched her thigh, and she was pretty sure it was intended to be comforting, but somehow it was discomfiting instead. “Our target disappeared to the men’s room just before you doused me in beer,” Kenshi said, “and it was an opportunity for me to go in and unbutton my shirt. Which started a conversation.”

“Well, usually taking clothes off gets a response, and you’re definitely a conversation starter. Do I have to pry this out of you or are you going to talk?”

“Are you going to listen, or be angry the entire drive back?”

“I’m going to do both,” she informed him, putting the car in reverse. “I’ll even one-up it to be resentful _and_ angry while listening. I can multitask.”

As they drove, he explained, succinctly - for which she was endlessly fucking grateful - the encounter. He’d gone in, complaining not so quietly about being doused, and unbuttoned his shirt to try to dry off the beer. Their mark had noticed Kenshi’s tattoos and asked about affiliation. When Kenshi tried to play it off and mentioned no longer being in the business, but planning on returning to Japan to introduce his girlfriend to his family, the other man had extended an invitation to a meeting at an office downtown. In the event old - other - family connections could prove useful.

“Don’t tell me I have to go to this meeting.” Sonya pulled up in front of Kenshi’s apartment building, throwing on her hazard lights and turning to face him. “Please tell me I don’t have to do this now. I actually do have other responsibilities. Pretending to date you doesn’t kick in yet. And I’ve got a feeling this is the kind of meeting that doesn’t need my presence.”

“While I will never decline the opportunity for your company, it would be far more of a test of your language skills than you might like, and you probably would not be particularly welcome,” he said. “But I would like to apologize for taking advantage of your trust. Would you like to come in for a drink?”

Her fingernails clenched around the steering wheel, almost white-knuckled. “The last time you took off your shirt, you got invited to a yakuza meeting. The time before _that_ , we ended up in bed. You need to get out of your shirt. Which side of the fence is this drink going to fall on, Kenshi? Business or pleasure?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The izakaya here is shamelessly ripped off of one I visited in Kobe in 2019. Also, Sonya’s Japanese is canon, depending on how you treat the Jeff Rovin novel. It makes her even more badass so I'm drawing on it.
> 
> Fun fact, the initial draft of this fic had 8 chapters. The current draft has 18. Sorry not sorry.
> 
> And thank you, as always, for reading and commenting. Kudos and comments notifications are the best.


	9. Unfinished Business

Sonya did not need to be a telepath to know that both of them were painfully conscious of the risks they courted, and she made the decision to keep it to business in the end. She knew he was deliberately teasing her when the first thing he did was strip off his jacket and shirt. He didn’t deign to pull a new one on, leaving her with an open invitation she refused to accept. She tried her damndest to keep her eyes anywhere but him. They discussed the remaining etiquette and yakuza knowledge that she would need to have, and kept coming back to the fact that as far as many people in Japan were concerned, the yakuza were businessmen. Some certainly were thugs and gangsters, but this would not be a free-for-all kind of group like the Black Dragon. Lapel pins and office fronts and ownership of dozens, hundreds, of different companies including major entertainment labels.

“They put out _newsletters?”_ She stared at him.

“Births, deaths, new members, funerals, projects…” Kenshi shrugged slightly, swirling his drink around in a cup. “It wasn’t until a recent act criminalized certain things that they they became more circumspect. You could just walk up to an office and find someone to speak with. Logos and labels were everywhere. I still expect we’ll do exactly that,” he added. “There’s no reason not to, especially if we have an introduction.”

“Alright. You go to your meeting, I’ll see if we can get someone to wait around downtown in case things go off the rails.”

“Do you think so little of me?” He looked faintly wounded, pulling back ever so slightly, shoulders tightening, and damn it she would _not_ look at the play of muscles and flowers as he did. She could count the petals on the peonies if she had to look at him. That was reasonable. It was art. Pretend it was a painting, a really nice painting. Look, but don’t touch.

“I trust you, but that also means I know you well enough to know what I’m getting into. If something happens, I don’t want to be getting you out of there in a body bag.”

He narrowed his eyes, tilting his face towards her. “I am beginning to think you really do think very little of me, to believe I would be the one coming out in a body bag.”

“Fine. I don’t want the mess of cleaning up a whole bunch of bodies in body bags. You’re a bad influence on me, remember?” She blew a loose strand of hair out of her face and tucked it behind an ear. “OIA jurisdiction is sketchy even on this. I’m pulling our Black Dragon card to get involved, and it’s borderline. He’s already been running interference with the local alphabet agencies and the police department to keep us in the clear.”

“As if I could ever influence you into something you didn’t want to do.” There was the hint of a smirk on his face. “I will follow up with the contact and see what, if anything, is of use to us. Find out how things stand.”

“You realize I have to tell Jax about this, right?” She leaned forward on her elbows, setting her cup down. “I need to tell him we found the one who got away and that you’ve got an in, because this has way too many moving pieces. We need to make sure everyone’s on the same page, and we’re not keeping secrets.”

“Not keeping secrets. Does that mean you telling Jax about the other thing?” Kenshi settled back into the cushions of his couch. She kept her mouth shut. “The fact that we had sex.”

“If it becomes relevant, which it’s not. It happened off the clock. You and I already had the talk about the line. If you think you can’t keep things separate, let me know and I’ll figure out a way to keep the op running without wrecking our cover.” She bit down lightly on the tip of her tongue.

“I can’t help but notice that you are being very precise about your words.”

“For a reason.” She stood up and held her empty cup in her hands. “I should head out of here, get Jax updated, and let you make your call. Where do you want me to put my empty? Don’t want to screw up your system.”

“Dishwasher, top right, please.”

She did as instructed, and had turned around the corner when she abruptly stepped into him.

“Sorry, I-“

“Was there a problem with it?”

“With what?” She had a sneaking suspicion she knew what he was talking about.

“The sex.”

“No.” She took one step back, then a second. “I’ve just got a job to do and I intend to do it. I don’t have time for a personal life right now.” Despite the fact that right now, she very much wanted to lean in and prove to him there hadn’t been any problems at all. At least fake being a goddamned professional, Blade. Less with the impulse. He just likes a challenge.

“That’s a shame.”

“We’ve worked together this long, and you’re just _now_ hitting on me?” She crossed her arms and glared in exasperation. “Why not six months ago, or six weeks ago? Seriously, what the hell. I could kill you right now.”

“You could try.”

“I’m tempted, honestly.” She ran a hand through her hair, adjusting her headband. “Maybe I will tell Jax. I’ll assign some newbie to you, and I’ll go run something else after the Black Dragon in Japan, because I know they’re there.”

“I would appreciate it if you did not. We have worked together, and been friends, before all this. We work well together in the field.” He paused, considering his words carefully. ”I would be lying if I said I did not want to do that again. It is difficult to find someone who does not treat me first and foremost as a blind man. You do not, and I enjoy that.” He leaned against the door frame. “I can keep our personal lives and our professional lives separate. But we did what we did before the cover story came up. I would like the opportunity to take you to bed again, and for you to know it has nothing to do with preserving cover.”

“Damn it, can you just not make this any more complicated?”

“And I thought women were supposed to like admissions of attraction.”

“I’m not most women,” she snapped, squeezing the bridge of her nose between her eyes. “It was great sex, all right? Is that what you want to hear? Yes, I would love to do it again. You were a great lay and it’s a nice ego boost that you’d like to get in the sack again with me.Hell, even dinner was nice before you used me to douse yourself in decent beer. But I have a really fucking hard time keeping personal and private separate sometimes because of how in everyone’s business and lives we all are. Look at Jax and I. There’s pretty much no separation. We have no boundaries anymore. It’s a mess.” She pressed her eyes shut. “I want to have a personal life that’s mine. Not because work is having you pretend to date me, all right?” She gritted her teeth and stepped away from the wall. “Is there anything else you need? I’m going to head home.”

“We’re not done, Sonya.” Kenshi reached one hand out towards her, but she edged away from it, around it, and pulled on her shoes.

She had a feeling he wasn’t just talking about the conversation.

She didn’t see him the next day, or the day after; whether it was conspicuous avoidance or simply timing and her workload and meetings, they avoided each other neatly for the next few days. Maybe he was being smart and actually taking a weekend off, something she never quite managed to do. She wasn’t sure how to tackle the tension between them, and frankly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to have to make the decision. She had enough decision making to do; reporting in to Jax gave her some reprieve. This wasn’t a decision she could force him to make, though. There was time to let things settle down before they flew off to Japan - this whole thing had started nearly a week ago. Only a week ago? Fuck, time was a mess.

She bit her tongue to stop from being distracted, and refocused her attention on Stryker, sitting across from her in her office. He’d continued speaking, and she wasn’t sure if he had noticed her lack of focus or not. He didn’t seem inclined to comment on it if he had.

“Look, you’re going to have to figure out how you’re going to take notes or debrief on this. You can’t go in with a wire,” Stryker pointed out in her office, “and even Jax’s tech and pet projects don’t have anything that’s going to work with this. Unless he’s after CleavageCam or something.” He leaned back in the chair, bouncing a foot on the floor.

“Yeah, probably don’t want A/V gear right next to my tits,” Sonya said dryly, glancing down at the pile of discarded wires and cables and microphones on the table. The spangled silver dress, all satin and sequins, hung on a hook next to the door. “And that’s the thing with the least amount of coverage I’m bringing. Not a lot of cleavage, but a lot of leg, which is apparently what’s allowed.” She wrinkled her nose. “Between the risk of picking up ambient body noise, the fact that people’s mouths won’t be down there, or if they are it’s gonna be a very loud noise of me breaking their face right after… Can’t we put Takahashi in a suit and give him a buttonhole cam? Or whatever it is these days?”

“They talked about it, but same problem - we can’t risk you guys being scanned and something getting picked up. You’re gonna just have to memorize everything, or find a way to take notes in a code you can remember later.”

“Sure you don’t want to trade? You can have the nice vacation. I’m sure some yakuza lady would like you. They’ve got to have women, right?” A bit of hope carried clearly in her tone, and he laughed and shook his head.

“Oh, hell no. Not suckering me in to this, this late in the game. I’ve got plans of my own - nothing undercover, really, but just a lot of getting in with the guys here in LA and around. Go back to New York. Especially if Kabal’s around on this side of things, someone’s got to know where he is. Makes me suspicious what they’re up to. It’s all been secondhand reports and intel, a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy says he was somewhere. Mindanao, Kabul, Juba, Bogota, Tripoli. You name it, if it might be a good place for illegal weapons, drugs, or anything on the fucked up side of the law, there’s reports.” He looked at the world map on her wall and its little pins, each signifying a Black Dragon hideout they knew of. Red ones marked reports of Kano - very few, now - and blue ones were for Kabal. There were a few more of those, mostly focused on Southeast Asia and Africa - war zones, insurrections, militant groups. Just the kinds of places the Black Dragon liked to make their money.

“Still trade you over having to play dress-up. I had to buy skirts, Kurtis. Fucking _skirts_ , and I can’t fight for shit in them. And that thing.” She pointed accusingly at the dress. “When am I going to wear it again?”

“Hey, you bought it. I have no sympathy for you. You could have said no, could have found an alternative that didn’t look like you were a disco ball with legs. Skirts, though… there are a few places downtown that have cheap ones. You could get some tear-off ones, just wear shorts under-“ He pulled back and dodged the pen she threw at him. “You’ll be fine. Seriously. If you’re getting into deep shit where you need to fight, you’ll have Takahashi as back-up. And if you’re solo, we all know that you can get out of it. Might mean some pissing contests, but we’d get you out of it.”

“Such a pep talk. I got another week at least to get the last of this shit together.”

“You’ve got forty-eight hours.” Jax’s voice carried into the room before he himself did. He loomed in her doorframe, nearly filling it. His broad metal shoulders almost brushed each side, and his fingers gripped a pair of rectangular slips of paper.

“Bullshit I do. What’s moved it up?” It felt like she’d been running and suddenly had her legs taken out from under her.

“Takahashi’s meet.”

“What the fuck did he do _now_?” Sonya sounded more aggrieved than she probably should, all things considered. Her personal annoyance with him was personal - shouldn’t have made it into the office.

“Now? Trouble in paradise?” Jax winked, and she tried to give him her best angry glare. His voice took on a serious tone. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Just hoping we’re not moved up because we need body bags.”

“I am, in fact, supposed to tell you - and I quote - ‘Tell Agent Blade that no body bags were required, and she owes me a drink if she asks’.”

“Smartass,” she said, slouching back in her chair. “Anyway. What’s happening?”

“Sounds like something is happening, couple of guys flying back from LA to Tokyo in two days, and you two are on that flight, along with some big boss and his goons. Budget’s not springing to first class, but somebody knows somebody so you two have some kind of fancy-ass business seats.”

“Thanks. Better than him, me, and some other idiot or two in coach.” The idea appealed nonetheless - she’d almost always flown MAC flights, or economy when that didn’t pan out. The idea of something slightly fancier, especially for a twelve hour period trapped in a tin can with wings, was nice. It’d give her twelve hours to get her head around all of this, especially since her week of planning had suddenly been cut short. “This is why you are, and remain, both my friend and my boss.”

“Well, you straighten your shit out with Kenshi. Maybe you two should go to dinner again, since the last time you did we got our new connection.”

“The last time he made me spill beer on him. I think I’m fine, thanks.” She sighed, and looked across at Stryker. “You wanna burn the midnight oil tonight?”

“We’re going to need to, make sure you’re all set, since we’re not going to be able to hide anything in that getup.” Stryker looked at Jax, and they exchanged a wordless look.

“It’s a good thing you’re going with the blind man. Anyone else and they wouldn’t be able to think properly.”Jax reached into a pocket and pulled out a pair of silver bracelets, a little chunky, but within the realm of jewelry. “Got you some presents anyway. Looks like they’ll go okay. They shouldn’t get picked up on any usual scans. Tracker in each of them, so if anything happens you can put one on Kenshi and keep one and we should be able to find you both. Wanted to put a couple extras in but I can’t get the tech down that small yet.” His voice was apologetic as he dropped the bracelets onto her desk. She picked one up, sliding it onto her wrist. It was heavy, and the light gleamed off it the same way it did off Jax’s arms - probably the same metal then.

“Feels all right. Any secret switches or buttons? If I bang them together, do they do anything?”

“Make noise.”

“So helpful.”

“Want me to just chip you instead like a dog? I’ll do that.” Jax snorted in satisfaction at her perturbed look.“Your flight’s early afternoon, so we’ll do a last update ass-crack of dawn, get you two to the airport, and then you’re on your own. With regular reporting in so I know you two haven’t gone and fucked shit up. Every twelve I want something, even if it’s just an all-clear. First one starts when you land, before you clear customs.”

“It’s almost like you don’t trust me.”

“You, I trust to the ends of the earth. Takahashi, I trust to run a solo op - he’s done some infiltration for us before and pulls it off like a champ. The two of you together? I’m prepping a care package for the Japanese ambassador, and the American ambassador to Japan. And the CIA station chief in Tokyo.”

“Thanks, pain in my ass.”

“No problem, Rapunzel.” She flicked her ponytail over her shoulder and glowered. Jax smirked at her. “When you and Stryker finish up, you need to get yourself packed. I’m going to see if I can shake any last minute toys out of R&D for you.”

Stryker shook his head at the two of them. “You two are ridiculous.”

“What, jealous you don’t get the banter?” Sonya rolled her eyes. “Jax can make it up to you while I’m gone, I’m sure. I’ll come back and the two of you will be going back and forth. I’ll be the one left out of the new round of in-jokes. It’ll be like the two of you speaking in code.”

“Well, you’re not out of here yet. Someone gonna go pick up Kenshi, or he getting back on his own?”

“He’s a big boy,” Sonya said, exhaling slowly. “If he needs something, I’m sure he’ll call.”

At the airport two days later, in an act that surprised both of them, Sonya hugged Stryker almost bonebreakingly hard. He’d offered to drive her and Kenshi to the airport, and had pointedly managed not to comment on the increased tension between the two of them. She stepped back from the ex-cop, putting her hands on his shoulders and gripping them hard. “You get the chance, either of them-” she started.

He held up a hand to stop her. “I’ll take it and ask questions later, and blame it on your bad influence.”

“Good. Keep an eye on Jax for me, too. He’ll run himself into the ground and won’t say word one.” She met Stryker’s eyes. “Needs someone to keep him on his toes.”

“I’ll do my best. Keep in touch with the comms, all right?”

“Drop my name if it’ll help, maybe some of those guys over there remember me kindly.”

“Send me a cleavage shot, to share around. It’s probably how they remember you.” He ducked out of her grasp as she made to throw a punch at him, only partially in jest.

“Asshole.”

“Aww, Sonya. Didn’t think you cared.”

“Ahem.” From behind them, Kenshi deliberately cleared his throat. “I hate to break up your farewell, but we have a plane to catch.”

“We do, don’t we?” She gave him a tight little smile, strained and thin, before looking back to Stryker. “Don’t blow anything up without me.”

“I’d say be safe, but I know better,” Stryker replied. “Just try not to get yourself arrested, would you?”

“I’ll try,” she assured him, hefting both her suitcase and Kenshi’s onto a luggage cart, and arranging the carryons on top with precision. “I make no promises.”

“Don’t want to break them?”

“Something like that.” She gave Stryker another crushing hug, and walked over to Kenshi. “Last chance to back out.”

“That’s before we board,” he said dryly. “I’ll do my best to keep her from international incidents,” the swordsman said to Stryker. “But again - I make no promises.”

“You two,” Stryker said, letting out a half-laugh and shaking his head. “Sonya, if you weren’t my boss-“ He stopped himself, and clapped Kenshi on the shoulder. “You have the patience of a saint.”

“I do.”

“Come on, blind guy, or your seeing eye Sonya is going to leave you at the curb,” she said, vaguely irritated. “We’ve got a plane to catch, right?”

It was one thing to know objectively that she was going to be operating with a cover story, and once she set foot in the airport that the game was on. It was an entirely different thing when she realized that she was going to be spending the next week - and potentially longer - blurring lines they’d barely established.

“Sento?” Sonya asked Kenshi as they made their way through the airport, bags deposited at check-in. He had a special badge allowing him various little priority things due to his blindness, meaning they glided through the security process with ample time to spare. It was then that she realized he was without his usual lethal accessory. “Shit, I just realized - what about Sento? Where’s your sword?”

“Checked baggage, in a case, wrapped and certified and all things done in such a way as the governments expect. I will not be carrying it out around in public, but I will have it.” His lips thinned. “I am not sure what I think about the fact that it took us until we were checked in and nearly on the plane that you thought about it.”

“You’re inseparable, and you’ve always managed to have it, and your armor, when you need it.” She shrugged almost flippantly. “This isn’t supposed to be a combat-focused mission, but I realized - as we were going through security-“

“Jax considered sending it through a diplomatic pouch, but that would have put the embassy at risk if we did. I am handling it as I usually do. It’s a shame Jax hasn’t managed the portal technology yet.”

“How the fuck the Black Dragon got it squared away before we did…” Sonya hissed quietly. “That’s what I wish had been in that damn box. Not beam emitters, but a piece of portal tech Jax could have taken and converted.”

“Blame Kira. She’s an anarchist, a psychopath, but she’s incredibly clever when it comes to technology.”

“I intend to.” Sonya took her free hand and rubbed at her jaw, already feeling the tension creep in. “I’m already getting frustrated and we haven’t even left yet. You schmooze where needed, I’m going to try to stay awake but I make no promises. Just make sure you keep me in the loop with whatever stories you concoct, all right? I have a feeling that my biggest complaint about our relationship it that you’re shit at communicating.”

He let out a laugh before he could compose himself.

“The implication being you’re impeccable at clear communication?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. But one of us can hide behind the excuse ‘I’m not a mind reader.’ And it’s not you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You ever have that chapter you really don't want to write but you need to write it to move things along? That's this one. I've tried to keep it entertaining, but I'm looking forward to what's coming up!
> 
> As always, thanks for the kudos and comments - they brighten my day when I get them and elicit happy dances.


	10. Mind The Gap (EXP)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A flight to Japan begins to set Sonya on a spiral of unease. There's a gap in her comfort level - but more importantly for her immediate needs, a gap in the shower door.

The plane flight was twelve hours she’d never get back. Sonya appreciated the business class seat and spent time refreshing her language skills, watching movies and enjoying stretching out in the cushy business class seats. The minute they’d been allowed to recline them, she’d converted hers into bed mode and reveled in the ability to stretch her legs out. Kenshi had taken the window seat, but seemed to spend little time in it. Every time she’d looked over - trying her hardest to stay awake for most of the flight, the easier to skip jet lag - he’d been chatting away animatedly in Japanese with someone or another.

He had never struck her as a social butterfly, and yet that was precisely what he was doing. She was fairly certain she was going to end up with a complicated backstory she had to commit to memory. The thought made her groan. She buried her face back in the Japanese language book she’d brought with her, a slim volume proving frustrating to struggle through. Languages were not her forte - she’d take a stealth op any time over trying to get her tongue around particles and weird inverted grammar structures.

She finally surrendered, sliding the book into her bag, and rolled her shoulders back, glancing over at Kenshi. He was seated on the edge of someone’s seat, a pretty young woman with chin-length bobbed hair and big wide eyes. They were conversing quietly, and Kenshi’s face was tipped towards the young woman, and Sonya felt unaccountably jealous for a moment.

As if sensing her eyes on him, Kenshi rose up from the seat and made a polite partial bow. He walked back to Sonya, hand casually drifting to touch her shoulder, then settled beside her on her seat. “Done with grammar?”

“If I have to read one more thing about verb conjugations I’m going to gouge out my eyes and then we’ll both be blind.”

“That would be a waste of very pretty eyes.”

“You don’t know. You haven’t seen them.”

“Ah, yes, but the woman I was just talking to complimented them.” Sonya made a muffled scoffing sound, and he leaned over to brush his lips across her cheek, speaking quietly into her ear. “We’ve received dinner invitations from the people I hoped to get them from. Apparently there is something going on… a new venture, in which I, experienced but unaffiliated, may be useful for. Especially if there’s the opportunity to travel back and forth between countries.”

“Mmm. So a dinner in which I’ll be the trophy, excluded from conversation, and the excuse for international smuggling operations?” She quirked a brow and he chuckled. “Makes me glad my father’s not around to see this. He’d probably tell me I’d better get my butt to Outworld and preemptively kick their asses, rather than get into this.”

“Sounds military.”

“He was.” She flexed her fingers. “Sometimes I wonder what he’d think of all this, but I know he’d’ve either been out there first, or he’d be helming the OIA. He died,” she added bluntly, “when I was eight. An op that even I haven’t been able to get my hands on the reports for.” Her fingers clenched up and he took one of her hands in both of his, thumbs working along it in a massage. “One day I’ll find out what the hell got him killed.”

“When we get out of this,” Kenshi offered in an odd tone, one she couldn’t put a finger on, “if you’re willing, we can see if I can find a way to help.”

“Would you?”

“Ancestor spirits,” he said as if by way of explanation. “They may be useful. I have a fair knowledge of ghosts and souls and spirits.”

Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed him on the lips, brief but sure. “I’d like that.”

“Was that personal or professional?”

“I should make you guess,” she said darkly, and he grinned, callused fingers still working along the soft skin of her palm and the undersides of her fingers. “That was personal. I appreciate the offer. It’s been… fuck. Almost twenty years now. Can’t quite let it go, though.”

“I have a feeling it’s the kind of thing you’ll never let go of until you resolve it,” he ventured, changing hands. “Once this is done.”

“Are we going to actually stop by and see your family while we’re here?” She looked at their hands, felt his fingers still on hers. He leaned forward again. She realized he was using proximity and the attention to hide his lips with her hair, blocking anyone trying to read his lips. She was turned towards the fuselage, and his position left him facing the main cabin.

“No.” He shook his head once, perfunctory. “That is long ago, and another life. We have a job to do, and cover is only cover. I have no intent to set foot anywhere near my parents unless I absolutely must. But I could certainly terrify them by bringing a blonde white American soldier to the house. I would be disowned even more effectively.” He let out a chuckle and laced his fingers with hers.

“That much animosity, hmm?”

“My father was - presumably still is - a nationalist. Land of the Rising Sun, take back the Sakhalins, the Emperor should have never surrendered. To see his son entangled with an American Army officer would possibly send him straight to his grave. But I would not do that to my mother.” She felt the inhalation of breath near her ear, but he seemed to close his mouth around whatever else would be said. “Tempting, but no. You will not, in fact, meet my family this time.” He pulled away, and she rolled her eyes.

“So we have dinner invitations, and anything else?”

“It’s business, Sonya. It may look like nothing is happening while things go in motion. And there are levels of formality and processes to go through. You have to be patient.”

“I don’t do patient well, you may have noticed.” She tugged her hand free from his, and gathered her hair back up in a ponytail. “Kind of not the sit back and relax type.”

“I really don’t think Japan is going to be ready for you.”

“Time to learn some new tricks, then.”

“Sonya versus a population of 126 million? I’m afraid that might be stacked against even you.”

“Y’know, I’m flattered you thought I was talking about them, and not me.” She chuckled, and his chin dipped in that smile he did. “You need anything? I’m going to put in headphones and try to watch something, if that’s alright.”

“I’ll manage. I can return to the conversation I was having.”

“Didn’t mean to interrupt. Go back to flirting or whatever it was. Public Sonya’s got a claim, but I’m not actually going to stand in your way of pursuing a personal interest.” She couldn’t mistake the way he pulled back, his shoulders squaring.

“While I appreciate your willingness to be hands-off, she’s of more interest because she is a naginata practitioner. We were discussing technique and the difficulty in finding appropriate sparring partners, as well as travel with the weaponry.” He leaned forward, cupped her cheek in one hand and pressed a kiss very deliberately on her lips, and she found herself leaning into it. The tightening low in her groin that followed was a sign that she needed to stop herself, and pulled back reluctantly. He swiped his thumb across her lower lip, and she forced herself to think of work again.

“Alright. Go back and talk about stabbing each other with things.” She pulled in a breath, forcing oxygen into her lungs. “Get me if you need a hand with anything, all right?” He gave her another look, mouth pulling sideways again in that smile. “What’s that for?”

“A thought of no import.” He stood up, fingers brushing up her arm to her shoulder and then the back of the seat, keeping his place and balance as the plane shuddered slightly. “We’re halfway. You may even consider getting some rest. I can wake you in a few hours if you’d like to do that instead.”

“That might not be a bad plan. But wake me up before if you need anything, all right? Anything at all.”

“Careful, Sonya, or I might take that as an invitation. Or a challenge.”

“You do that,” she said mildly. “Been there, done that, not worth the hassle. I like to take my time and airplane sex is just rushed and cramped.”

She took great satisfaction in his dumbfounded expression, and settled back into her seat with a smirk.

Japan was very, very different.

She wasn’t sure what she had expected. Years of TV and movies had primed her, and conversations with Kenshi had thrown a different light on it, but it was conscious effort to not look like an idiot. Everything was organized and moved smoothly despite the press of people. There was English signage, but she had a feeling it was more for appearances than a guarantee of speech. There was definitely a lot of signage entirely in Japanese, and her SF training was coming woefully short. With Kenshi tucked in the seat beside her, she focused her attention on the scenery outside her window as the airport express flung itself towards Tokyo. The scenery changed steadily as the train rushed onwards. They boarded in early evening, the sun still over the horizon and casting its rays over woden houses with slightly sloped roofs, asymmetric designs, tiered roofs and offset doors set in small towns in between stretches of flat countryside. When they arrived in the city, the sun had nearly set and neon lights and the babble of the city bounced between high-rises, train lines, and returning office workers.

In Tokyo proper, they switched trains from the fancy airport express to a more local train, and the timing was late enough that they avoided the crush she’d heard stories about. It didn’t take long to get to their hotel, snatching a quick meal in the train station along the way.

“I need a shower and to get out of these clothes.” Sonya tossed her duffel bag on theluggage rack in the room, turning around to take Kenshi’s from him. He stuck out one hand, letting it drift along the walls and furniture as if to map the space around him.

“Let me know if you need a hand with anything. That is what you said on the flight, isn’t it?”

“I can take a shower by myself, thanks.”

“That is not what I meant. I mean it in a purely professional way.” He pulled off his sunglasses, setting them neatly on a table. “You will understand.”

“Now I’m nervous.” She was used to camp arrangements; she’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan and Kuwait. She could handle sleeping on the ground, cleaning with wet wipes or a handheld gravity shower. This was a decent hotel in Tokyo, with an elevator and wifi and everything.

She stepped into the bathroom - fairly small, by her standards. One side was toilet and sink, and the other had a sliding door that retracted to reveal a shower and what looked like a deep box, higher and taller than any bathtub she’d seen - but that’s precisely what it was. She couldn’t stretch out in it, but maybe at the right angle, all of her would fit in it and be submerged up to the shoulders. He could have the bed - she was going to move in here immediately. She let out a long, low moan at the thought of a hot bath, relaxing all her muscles.

“Is everything okay?” Kenshi’s voice sounded mildly concerned, or amused, as if he couldn’t decide which.

“You’re prying me out of here over my cold, wet, dead body.”

“Your-“ There was a pause, and then a laugh. “Is it a good bathtub, then?”

“You’re prying me out of here over my cold, wet, dead body,” she repeated. “Or you can sleep in the bed, and I’ll sleep here.”

“You would eventually leave when the water got cold. Wash off first with the shower, and then soak until you are done. That is the usual protocol. Do you genuinely want to soak?”

“I would like to.”

“Then if I can wash off first, I can hold off on soaking until later.”

She stepped out of the bathroom, her mind busy with the prospect of soaking herself for hours. “Done.” Sonya reserved the right to admire him as he opened up his suitcase and hung several things up with precision. Either he had a very good sense of the room and was echolocating like some kind of bat, he was drawing on Sento somehow, or he was using part of his telepathy on her to understand the room. He pulled off his shirt, folding it neatly and setting it aside. “Never going to get used to that.”

“Used to what?” He looked at her over his shoulder, and she watched the fish and leaves flex.

“The ink. And the fact that apparently Cage knew before I did.” She sat on the edge of the bed and crossed her arms.

“He’s a friend, Sonya.” Kenshi turned around, laying Sento out on the table, carefully angled. “I’m going to take a shower, and then you can soak yourself until you’re a prune.”

“I plan on it.” She watched him go, fingers knotting in the blankets under her hand. She waited a few minutes, until she heard the water running, to gather her thoughts and then start to unpack. She hadn’t brought much, under the assumption that she could buy anything else she needed here. She pulled her toiletry kit out and walked to the bathroom. There was a divider - a small sliding door - between the shower-bath cubicle and the toilet and sink. She set to brushing her teeth, and turned around to lean against the sink, thinking about the next steps, the way to start sorting through things tomorrow. They’d need to -

Kenshi hadn’t shut the door entirely.

There was enough of a gap that she could see into the shower cubicle. She wouldn’t have put it past him for it to be a deliberate gap, with way they’d been dancing around things. If he wanted to play the exhibitionist, she’d be more than happy to play the voyeur. As she looked at the line of skin he’d left for her to see, she decided she’d guessed correctly - those fish did look good glistening in water. All of him did. She paused, chewing on the toothbrush rather than brushing, leaning back against the sink and taking her time. She couldn’t see much, but the line of muscle and ink and skin, and then he turned around, giving her a view from his collarbone down along his body and thigh. Oh, he knew the door was open all right. She smirked, and resumed brushing.

“See something you like?” He called, voice just loud enough to be heard over the running water.

“Don’t know,” she said around her toothbrush. “Why, you giving me a show?”

“Room in here for two.”

“Right, and a whole bunch of bruises after. I was in there to see the bathtub, remember.” She considered nudging the door open further to enjoy the view. She spat and rinsed off her toothbrush and looked up in the mirror, catching the lines of his body reflected. “Now, I mean, if you need a hand, I might be able to be convinced to help out. But don’t want to make any implications you’re not able to do things on your own or anything.”

“There are some things you can do on your own but are much more pleasant with company.” Kenshi turned again, feigning a bump into the door that slid open a bit more. Her eyes locked onto him standing there, one hand lazily stroking his cock and taking his sweet time with it. His hands were frothy with soap and she bet he was using that as an excuse, but fuck if she didn’t want to get in there with him and take over. She squeezed her eyes shut. This was him offering a challenge. He was deliberately fucking with her. “We’re in the hotel. This is personal, not professional. And what would the sense be in wasting a perfectly good shower?”

“So my take away from this is that you can’t shower on your own.” She reached down and pulled off her shirt, balling it up and tossing it into a dry corner. What the hell. Maybe get it out of their systems. Actually be able to work instead of thinking the entire time how nice it would be to get laid. Maybe a second go would make some of this less awkward, feel less like she had sand under her skin that she couldn’t get out. She shimmied out of the rest of her clothes, tossing them aside to join the shirt. She grabbed a pair of towels and hung them on the rack just outside the door. She stared for a moment at the control panel beside it - buttons and arrows and icons.

“It sounded like you were going to join me, but you’ve stopped moving.”

“I think this thing heats the towels but I’m not sure what buttons to push. Way more complicated than the tech I’m used to. Feels like the bathroom is a sci-fi movie.”

“Welcome to Japan.”

She gave up on it and pushed a couple of buttons she hoped were right. Either that or they’d summon an extradimensional demon. She knew at least how to handle those. She pulled the bathroom door shut all the way, and then slid the cubicle door open into what was at least a tolerably warm shower and shut it firmly behind her. Her skin prickled, and his hands were suddenly on her biceps, pulling her into the spray of water. His hands were wet and soapy, gliding effortlessly along her body. She reached up and slid one hand along his shoulders and neck, pulling his mouth down to hers. This was a bad choice, a really bad choice if she let herself think about it. So she didn’t.

They kissed lazily for a few minutes, her hands wet and then full of soap as she ran her hands across him. His hands crawled along her as if cataloguing the textures of her body. He was as good as she remembered, their tongues flicking and sliding across each other, mouths open, kissing hot and messy with no thought for grace or skill. She wanted this, liked it better than she should, and the deliberate way he worked to rouse her made her knees go weak. He drew her lower lip between his teeth and sucked on it gently. She let out a muffled groan as pleasure coursed through her. She put a hand on the wall beside his head as his hands caught and played with her breasts, nipples gone hard with desire. She wanted to melt into him.

The appeal appeared to be mutual, because it sure as hell wasn’t a loofah pressing against her stomach. Maybe it was the heat, or maybe the fact that they were sharing too many breaths, but she’d started to think she was getting dizzy on him. She stepped back against the wall beneath the shower head.and pressed on his hip until he turned away from her. He braced both hands against the wall in the small space. Selfishly, greedily, Sonya ran her hands along the tattoos of his back, feeling him shudder beneath her hands. She pressed herself up against him, lay her chest across his back so the shower spray rained on both of them. She slicked one hand with with water and dropped a hand down in front to grab his erection. He shuddered, a full-body ripple of muscle, and threw his head back. It hit her, and her hand tightened reflexively, drawing a long low moan out of him even as she sucked in a breath against the pain.

“Are you all right?” He tried to turn, voice hoarse with need but still concerned. She twisted her hand along the slick length of him.

“Going to have a headache. Exactly what I said about bruises. But I’ve been hit by harder things than that.” Her hand kept working, tight and twisting, and she kept her position behind him.

“Sonya,” he said with a shudder, “I will not be long if you keep that up.”

“Who’d’ve thought you of all people would have endurance issues? All that control.” Her voice was mildly teasing, and he thrust forward hard, in the tight ring of her fingers. He’d liked when she talked to him last time in bed, and it wasn’t her forte, but she was willing to give it a try. “You look good like that. You’re unfair, all that ink and muscle and this,” and she stroked him again, fingertips brushing across the head of his cock, “and it takes me a shitty fucked-up stakeout to finally get to it.” Beneath the sound of running water, she heard a moan fight its way out of his throat as he thrust forward into her hand again.

“I am not used to women I would very much like to take to bed giving me hand jobs in a shower,” he responded in a strained voice, “and the novelty is extremely arousing. I can feel your voice against me.” There was a murmured curse in Japanese, and she felt a heat between her legs that had nothing to do with the water temperature. Apparently this would do it.

“You said I could give you a hand.” She twisted her fingers and wrist again. He pressed his forehead against the wall. She slowed the speed of her strokes as she felt his hips beneath her begin to move of their own accord.

“You _offered_ to give me one.” She could see his hands flat against the wall, knuckles almost white.

“You _did_ say you wanted company. And I’m definitely giving you a helping hand right now. Not my fault you’re not ready for the consequences.”

“The consequences.” Kenshi turned around. She’d somehow expected him to be angry, or irritated, but not for the look of challenge on his face, the half-lidded eyes, his mouth hanging half-open in unadulterated desire. Then the spray from the shower hit his face, and his sputtering indignation as he held his hand up to block it. She stumbled and nearly fell, catching herself and slumping down onto the textured floor, shaking with laughter at his indignation. Her knees splayed out and she snorted, head lolling back on the wall.

“Jesus, Kenshi. Fuck, I’m sorry, you go on about consequences and then that-“ She shook with laughter, and he managed to strike a perturbed look for another few seconds, made incongruous by the erection curving up slightly towards his stomach.

“I’m glad to know I amuse you,” he said in a voice nowhere near angry. He offered a hand to help her up, and she clasped her hand around his forearm. “You may have been correct about sex in the shower. But it seems a waste to take you to bed and then have you shower again before you have a bath.”

“Maybe… Maybe the bath can wait.” Sonya stepped in front of the spray, tilting her head back into the shower and letting the suds cascade off her body, working her fingers into the mass of blonde hair to get all the soap out. “But I needed to get the smell of airplane and everything else off of me. And it’d be a shame to let that go to waste.” She darted a hand towards his cock again and Kenshi pulled away, turning to the side.

“Oh, I have learned my lesson. Out of the shower and you may have your hands on it as much as you’d like.”

“How’d you even know I was going to do that?”

“You are, at times, immensely predictable.” He shifted in the space, brushing against her. “Sit.”

“Mmm?” She made a puzzled sound, and he nudged her towards the edge of the tub while he adjusted the shower head slightly. It was tall, the rim wide enough she could sit, and she was tired enough now to oblige without arguing. She sat down and he dropped to his knees in front of her, taking one of her legs and settling it over his shoulder. The back of her throat was suddenly dry as he pressed his face between her legs. He kissed the inside of her thighs, nibbling at the skin, before working his way up. She almost leaned back before realizing the lack of support she had, and cupped his head with one hand instead, the other holding onto the edge of the bathtub. Her fingers knotted loosely in the thick mass of his hair, cupping the curve of his skull with her palm. “Oh.”

She felt a muffled chuckle between her legs as he brushed her clit with his nose, one hand working up her thigh slowly. He lapped at the tight bud of nerves and tucked one finger inside of her, curving it in the sort of come-here gesture that very nearly made her fall off the edge of the tub. Her hand clenched on his head and her thighs tightened around him to keep her from wobbling. Her eyes half-closed and she resettled herself. As she focused again, she saw something new - a mirror obviously intended for someone using the shower, but tucked away on one side. It was at the height for her to look at herself, almost stare herself in the eyes. She’d never been a voyeur before, but this… this was good. Kenshi really did look good between her legs, whatever the position. She liked this more than a little.

“Yes,” she hissed as he found a spot that made her quake, need burning through her veins like fire. “Keep doing that.” He hummed agreement against her clit and the sensation was so good that she would have bucked forward if it hadn’t meant losing her balance. It was as if he was cataloguing her every moment, her every whimper and every moan, because the stronger her reaction, the more he did whatever it was. Fucking _telepath_. There was a chuckle between her legs, and she wasn’t sure if she’d thought it, or said it, to get that response.

She looked at herself, pupils blown wide with lust, mouth hanging half-open until she bit her lip and tried not to groan. She looked like she was in a cheap porn, but the idea turned her on more than a little. Kenshi’s teeth grazed across her and she couldn’t keep the next moan in, nails digging into his scalp. Everything he did was driving her closer to an orgasm, and that was precisely when he pulled his mouth away and slipped his finger out of her.

“Bed?” His breathing was rough, and he kept one hand on her leg as a support.

“Bed,” she agreed, turning off the shower with a degree of muscle control that surprised her. She stood, legs a little more wobbly than she would ever admit, and opened the cubicle door. Even with the outer door still closed, it was noticeably chillier and she hissed as goosebumps peppered her body. She snagged both towels off the rack, noting they were mildly warm, and no extra dimensional beings had appeared while they were occupied. She might get the hang of all these buttons eventually, but in the mean time - she had some other ones she wanted to press.


	11. Overwhelmed (EXP)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Awful week continues awfully and this did not get the edit treatment it usually does, but have some more smut! <3

In their migration from the shower to the bed, they had the forethought to spread out a towel on the pillows so Sonya’s hair didn’t make it a sodden mess. It was autopilot for her. Kenshi dropped onto the bed and pulled her down beside him. His lips found hers easily - they were getting good at this, and that concerned her somewhere deep inside. She moaned into his mouth, deciding right about now was a good time to not care about being overheard. One of his hands slid unerringly to the damp curls between her thighs, the other weaving into her damp hair. She could get used to this, and the thought slid through her mind and out again.

He kissed her again, her breath stuttering as he shifted his grip. He tugged at her hair and she sucked air into her lungs, tongue sliding along his and arching against the lean muscle of his body. The tug on her hair hurt, but in a good way, the kind that sent pleasure shooting through her body. She could feel the heat of his cock, pressing hard and smooth against her; she wrapped a hand around it. He groaned at her touch, shuddering at the sensation, a full-body movement that made her pull away. His lips were reddened, and she liked seeing the mark she’d made on him.

“You okay?”

“I have no complaints,” he said as his fingers brushed across the folds between her legs. “But I need to restrain myself. It is like I could get drunk on you, lose myself in you, your mind and your body.” He trailed off and shook his head.

She had to give him credit; if they’d met in a bar, he could have probably gotten her naked with words like that. No, no probably about it. Blind he may be, but he sure as shit knew his way around women. Or her, at least. She felt him twitch in her grip, and kissed a spot beneath his ear, tugging gently on his earlobe with her teeth. His fingers tightened in her hair and he thrust into her hand with the motion.

“I’ll stop if you want me to,” she said. In response, he slid a finger inside her slowly, and she bit down harder on his earlobe. Her thighs spread wider of their own accord, and his thumb began to circle and brush across her clit again, pulling her back towards the crest of ecstasy. She could feel her breathing getting shallower, shorter.Maybe his comparison of getting drunk wasn’t so off from how she reacted to him as well; he sucked away both her breath and good sense at the same time.

“Answer enough?” He nipped gently at the skin of her neck and worked his way down, each small bite making her bow into him, stringing together bright notes of pain-pleasure that made her body thrum. She began to stroke his cock with her hand, feeling him grow harder, and the second finger he slid inside her in response. She couldn’t tell if they had patience tonight - she was tired still, but he roused something inside of her that wanted to drag this out, make his body writhe under her, make him beg for his release. Especially after that show in the shower, turnabout was fair fucking play. At the same time, every touch of his fingers, flick of his thumb, the way he worked his lips across her skin, wound her tighter and tighter. She wanted him badly. No more dragging it out, no playing rough, just a good, satisfying lay.

He seemed to share the opinion, or at least to read her mind and be willing to go with what she wanted. His fingers eased their thrusts, and he settled himself between her thighs, lifting one leg up to rest her heel on his shoulder. He dragged his fingers up from thigh to calf to heel, marked her anklebone with a touch of his lips. She wrapped her other leg around his waist, heel digging into his back and pulling him closer.

“Bruise me too badly and I will be no good to you.” His voice caught once, but he forced the words out. In response, she dragged her nails down his chest.

“You said something like that the last time, and look where that got us.”

He let out a half-laugh, unhooking her other leg and settling it too over his shoulder. It was an odd angle, but as long as it got him inside her, she was willing to do just about anything right now. He pressed the tip of his cock against her, and she shifted forward, trying to catch him. He pulled back ever so slightly and she made a soft growling noise of irritation, but he either didn’t hear or didn’t care. Instead, he lingered there between her legs on the precipice, hands curving over her skin.

“Not a bad position to end up in, as far as I’m concerned.” She wanted to sound confident, and instead wondered if she sounded needy.

“I intend to make sure you enjoy it.” He nudged forward and she exhaled, eyes closing at he slid himself into her, filling up the empty space with heat and pleasure. His hands ran along her legs, alternating nails and fingers. He pulled back and she chased him, sliding her hips forward, and moaned with satisfaction when he plunged back in. Every roll of her hips, every thrust and movement, struck a new note of desire, set the throbbing of her body to a higher pitch. She reached for him, barely finding contact; she could feel him move inside her, but wanted her hands on him too. She remembered how he’d responded the last time she’d praised him during sex, as if it had been the kind of encouragement he needed. If she couldn’t get her hands on him, her voice would have to do.

“I want to feel you, I want your hands on me. I like it when you touch me.”

It had the desired response - his hands slid down her legs slowly, and the rhythm picked up pace, his breathing going shallower. He tipped his head back and she wished she could kiss him, wanted to find a way to look at him and breathe him in all at the same time, to feel his body across hers. Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, but she liked the way he responded. She wasn’t used to this, didn’t know what to say, but wanted to say more. She liked how he looked when he got the praise, wanted to give him more, but damn it she was going to sound like an idiot if she did.

“This is good,” she said stupidly, honestly, hungrily. “I like this.”

“Good,” he said, the corners of his mouth turning up. “It’s a shame we waited so long.”

His hands slid down further, grasping her thighs, and she tried to wrap herself around him. Eventually they shifted. Sonya tangled one hand in his hair and dragged the other down his chest again, eyes catching on the tattoos. A thought rose up into the haze of lust, curiosity about why it looked so much like the dragon and the tiger were watching her. She ignored it in favor of how badly she wanted him, how good it felt to have him inside her, how his touch made her skin burn and pleasure radiate through her body. How good this all felt, and how anything else didn’t matter - just him, just now, just how good he made her feel.

One of his hands came down to her face, thumb sliding along her cheek and across her lips. It kept moving, went down to one breast, his fingers rolling the nipple between them. Already sensitive, the additional sensation made her shudder, clench her muscles around him deliberately. His breathing was as rough as hers, and he made a soft growling sound as he pulled out almost fully. She pushed herself forward, almost blind with her own need. If she was an instrument, he’d played her hard and was holding one note, letting it carry, until he surged forward into her in one sweet smooth stroke that took her breath away.

Her orgasm crashed though her as a surprise, like the string had broken, and he fucked her through the taut muscles and curled toes, whatever nonsense words and sounds she was making. His ceaseless movement made it carry on longer than she expected. She pried open her eyes, suddenly weighty, to see his face close to hers. He’d lowered himself down sometime during her haze of bliss and kissed her again, and her nails dug into the meat of his shoulders, pulling him down.

“You feel good,” she told him breathlessly, riding the slower waves of pleasure that rippled through her. “I can feel every inch of you - fuck, Kenshi.” She angled her hips, trying to take him in deeper. His chest rose and fell in shuddering breaths, skin flushed with exertion. Her hands caressed everything she could reach, one hand cupping his cheek and running her thumb over his lip in kind. His eyes were open and wide, nearly pure white with time and damage, and it might have been discomfiting if it wasn’t _him_ and the naked unalloyed desire the rest of him was giving off.

“Sonya, I’m close,” he said almost in warning, his voice low and rough. She hooked her heels behind him, dragging him closer, fingers curling into his arms. She tensed all her inner muscles around him, feeling a new curl of pleasure as she could feel his length for every stroke, every way he seemed to try to push them into the mattress. Then his body bowed with the intensity, his breath caught in his chest for one, two, three heartbeats before he could breathe again. He swore, pulled out and then slid home again with another muted curse, something rarely heard him say. She grinned and gloried in having wrung it from him. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, mouth open and breathing hot and heavy against her skin.

They collapsed in a tangled mess of limbs, her heart rate struggling to come back down to normal. Kenshi’s head rested on her chest, breath hot and moist along her, and then suddenly he moved. He worked his legs free, lifted his head, and slid out and off of her with a startling speed.

“Something wrong?” She looked up, sat up. “Something disagree with you?”

“No,” he said, eyes pressed closed, and she could see the lie, how he made sure not to touch her.

“Liar.” She rose from the bed, any idea of enjoying the afterglow shattered.

“Too much,” he said, through almost gritted teeth. She swiped the towel off the pillow and stalked to the bathroom to hang it up, soaked as it was from her hair.

“Never had a guy say I was too much,” she snapped, any hope of afterglow banished.

“You overwhelm me, Sonya. Your mind is busy and I cannot keep it at bay, you do maddening things to me. The moment I’m inside you, my mind and body are utterly beset by sensation, by pleasure.” He let out a rough laugh. “I am almost sick on you. And even with my body in knots, I cannot help but want to do it again as soon as possible.”

That was a reason, she supposed, and sighed. She gave him a grudging nod. “I get it. I’ll take the floor.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he started, and she raised a hand.

“Look, if touching you makes you sick, and my head fucks with you, I’ll go rinse off and have my bath. Should help me think less - and you can have the bed. I’ll take the floor when I come out.”

“Sonya-“ He caught himself, voice aggravated. “No. I won’t make you sleep on the floor. I will not ask you to.”

“I’m offering.”

“No. We’re professionals, are we not?” He arched an eyebrow, and he didn’t need vision to communicate the scathing sarcasm; his voice did fine on its own. “Give me five minutes, then you can soak, and I will be out of your way.”

She gave him a grudging nod, and leaned against the wall, out of his way. Why did this have to be so complicated? It was just sex, and yet - work had come into it, or it had come on account of work, and so far the cover story had been just that, all of this was _them_. She liked it, and there was at least a week of this ahead. She waited for him, reached out to brush a hand across his shoulders, make peace, but pulled it back at the last minute. There might have been something on his face, but he kept it schooled to neutrality as he passed her, and she headed in to rinse off and soak.

Basking in steaming hot water up to her shoulders with her knees covered made everything better. She lazed until the water went lukewarm and her muscles had gone to jelly. She got out and dried off, pulled on the shorts and tee shirt she’d packed as pajamas, and snagged her laptop from its case. She looked at the bed, where Kenshi seemed to be asleep with his back to her.

It would be a hell of a lot more comfortable to do this on the bed than at the dinky table and chairs, and she could be quiet. If he had a problem, he’d figure out a way to tell her, and it’d probably be closing the laptop. She settled down cross-legged on the bed and propped the laptop across her thighs.

This was work, anyway. He could suck it up.

She opened the laptop and popped in her earbuds, and opened the security protocols as well. As secured as she could get, she called Jax.

“ET phoning home.”

“Get into the hotel all right?”

“We’re fine. Lot of schmoozing on the flight, got fed and into the hotel room, planning out the next few days. Everything good on your end?” She adjusted her earbuds a little more comfortably in her ears, speaking quietly into the mike.

“Stryker’s gone down a rabbit hole, Cage is asking if there’s anything he can do as an OIA liaison. Think he’s getting jealous of everyone having fun and Hollywood is slow right now.” On the other end, thousands of miles away, Jax gave a staticky laugh and Sonya snickered. “Anything to report?”

“Not really. Need to try to call it a night soon, get on a normal schedule here. Takahashi’s handling everything on that end.” She looked to where the man in question lay, eyes closed and looking for all the world like he was asleep. “But we’re in and safe and doesn’t look like anyone fucked around with our stuff. Bracelets got through, his sword made it, he managed some sweet-talking on the flight and did everything we expected.”

“So who’s got the floor?”

“I’ll probably take it. He’s out, and I just soaked my bones in the bathtub here. Even you might fit in it,” she quipped, and it earned another staticky laugh. “Plan is tomorrow to take it slow and get an overview of things. He needs to figure out how much has changed, and shit, SF training didn’t do jack on making me prepped for language stuff. It’s…” She trailed off, twisting the cord in her fingers. “You remember the first week of boot camp, or SF training, and just getting your head around everything? It’s like that, all over again.”

“Shit, well, hope the headache isn’t too bad. Well, we haven’t exactly been worried about fighting with Japan lately,” Jax replied. “You pick something like Farsi or Indonesian and I bet you’d be fluent by now. Works for the cover, though, so you’re fine.”

“And how’s Vera?”

“Busy with this new casino build. Sounds like the weekend in Vegas was good, got to meet some high rollers and she’s getting an idea of how they want the construction to go. Their bid was accepted, the layout’s- ah, hell. You call her.”

“Hey, but at least you’re asking questions enough to know what’s going on so I know you care,” Sonya teased. “Tell her hi since I don’t know how much I’ll be texting from here.”

“Cheap boss didn’t upgrade your phone plan?”

“He’s usually pretty good about that shit,” she smirked, “but I’m not sure how much social time we’re going to have.”

“Drop her a line anyway, and if you have service issues, let me know and I’ll go ream someone out. Big black guy with metal arms shows up and things usually get fixed real fast.”

“Copy that.”

“Takahashi there?”

“Yeah, like I said, he’s passed out, or I’m pretty sure, short of hooking him up to an EEG. Why?”

“Be honest. This thing gonna be okay? You two gonna manage this? Stryker said you were snippy at the airport.”

“I’m fine, Jax, I’m a professional, right?” She lied gracelessly, determinedly not thinking about sex and how her body still ached in a wonderful kind of way. Even more determinedly not thinking about the liquid heat that started pooling between her legs merely at the thought of him with his mouth on her again. “What, you think I’m gonna hang him out to dry if Kano shows up?”

“Kano shows up and I wouldn’t put a damn thing past you. Same reason I’m keeping Stryker on as short a lead as I can manage.”

“And you’re above all this?”

“Nah, just don’t have anyone to pick up for me or I’d go run off and hunt Kabal too.”

“There’s the asshole I know and love.”

“Be smart, Sonya, all right? You do something stupid, who’s gonna pick up the paperwork here? Anyone’s gonna get stiffed with the admin crap, better you than me.”

“Nice to see where my value to the company lies,” she complained, half-laughing. “Alright.I’m knocking off for the night. Follow up again tomorrow before we head out, send me a message to my phone if there’s a change in status. I don’t want to touch my inbox or I’ll never get out of the hotel room.”

“Copy. Briggs out.”

“Blade out.” She unplugged her headphones, closed the laptop and slid it into her bag, and looked back at the man sleeping beside her. The bath hadn’t helped, but maybe sleep would; as of right now, her lies to Jax were bitter in her mouth.

She wasn’t fine.

Instead, she pulled out her phone and obligingly sent Vera a brief text, the kind of ‘hi, not dead’ unhelpful kind that would probably elicit a complaint, but would at least assuage her. The response came back startlingly quick.

_Gotta make me one promise. You better make out with him at least once and tell me how it goes. Cover story, right?_

Sonya groaned, thumbs hovering over the screen, debating on how to reply. Vera was a good friend, and - well.

_Why, is there a betting pool on?_

Ellipses followed in short order.

_I win $100 if you send me a photo of the two of you making out._

Sonya’s fingers flew fast across the screen. _This is for work, you really think I’m going to send you photographic proof if I hook up with my COWORKER?_ She sent it, waited a few seconds, and kept typing. _Make it $200 & cut me in & I’ll see what I can do._

She was fairly certain if she offered to give Kenshi a share, he’d use his telekinesis on her phone to take the damn photo. Before she got drawn into a longer conversation, she set an alarm for the morning and put the phone on the nightstand. Standing, she plucked her pillow off the bed, and looking at the floor. There had to be another blanket - she could deal without it, but she really didn’t want to if she could avoid it.

“Don’t.” Kenshi’s voice, groggy. “You spent twelve hours in a tin can and just had a good soak. I would not be able to forgive myself if I caused you to sleep on the floor and ruin your relaxation.”

“Not afraid I’ll touch you and make you sick?” The words were out before she could hold them back. Her filter was long gone. “Ah, hell. I’m tired and snappy.”

“Come to bed.” His back was still to her, but she heard him roll over, saw the white of his eyes in the shadowy room. “We need to figure out how we will make this work between us, Sonya. If the personal and the professional-“

“We’ll figure it out in the morning, okay? You should sleep, and I’m exhausted and bitchy and we won’t come to any agreement now.” She put the pillow back on the bed, lifted up the covers and slid in. It was cold, colder than it had a right to be, but he was a warm spot she could sense even on the other side of the mattress. She curled up, knees tight against her chest.

“We’ll talk over breakfast,” he said, and felt his fingertips brush against her shoulder. “Good night, Sonya.”

“Night, Kenshi.”

She closed her eyes, and was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, as always, for comments. They make my day (week!) and I appreciate them all.


	12. Dirty Little Secret

“Our dinner invitations are for tomorrow night, at an izakaya the family uses.” Kenshi’s voice was pitched low and easy. Sonya tried to focus on it while she stared at the breakfast in front of her. She would have considered it lunch or dinner - rice and salmon, miso soup and pickled vegetables. Too much when normally she would count herself lucky with toast or some eggs.

“Should be okay,” she said, picking a piece of fish up with her chopsticks, determined to not make a complete idiot out of herself. “You’re in charge on this, I’m just your guide-girlfriend. As long as you don’t make me spill anything on anyone again.” The word tasted strange in her mouth, and the heavily salted salmon didn’t do much to take the strangeness away. There was tea, but it wasn’t even the overbrewed bagged stuff they had in the mess, but some kind of toasted grain thing. She’d stick to water, and look a long drink from her glass. “So, all of this… the us thing. Are we good?”

“I think we are. Last night was good, until it wasn’t.” Kenshi seemed to find all of the food easy to manage, even blind; it was the kind of easy familiarity that came with being home, with knowing how things worked. “What I said was true, all of it. I am not used to much of that contact now, but it is - _you_ \- are easily the most addictive thing I have had to deal with.” His lips curved slightly with the faintest hint of a smile. “So consider it withdrawal problems, then?”

She nearly snorted her water. “Really? That level of pun?” He dipped his chin and she groaned, fighting with another piece of salmon. “I get it. I just - we’re here so I can see things, and to see your family,” and she was proud how she didn’t stumble over the word, “and to meet people. So that - threw me.”

“After breakfast, let’s do a little sightseeing before we find my old coworkers,” he said smoothly. “Ease you into things.”

“Right. As long as you don’t pull any more surprises out of your metaphorical hat, we’ll be fine. There’s only so much I can handle, and I’m good with how things are right now.” She hated this doublespeak, but she was a beast before breakfast and desperately needed food to be reasonable. “Don’t throw any wrenches into things - leave the status quo as it is - and I’ll be fine.”

“So I shouldn’t propose when we meet the family?”

She kicked him under the table, earning a half-laugh half-groan at the contact with his leg.

“Noted.”

“You may have realized I don’t have a romantic bone in my body. Try to propose and that will be the least of your worries.”

“I promise I will not propose anything we haven’t already agreed upon,” he said seriously. “Fair enough?”

“Fair enough.”

“Then let’s finish up and I’ll take you around.”

It was beyond odd to see Kenshi with the white-tipped blind man’s cane so stereotypical in movies and on TV, but he had armed himself with one when they left the hotel in the morning, and seemed happy enough to use it. It discomfited Sonya immensely, given the fact that she knew he didn’t need it, and that he could fight and kill with ease without the aid. It was a blatant deceit. There was a reason she’d been Special Forces and went in with a bang and a boom and a breach team. Subtlety had not been synonymous with Sonya.

Kenshi was firm about his intent to do some sightseeing and get her comfortable - as well as to ensure there was some plausibility behind their cover story. And, he admitted, a need to reacclimatize himself to Tokyo and the mental crowd that would quickly come to bear on his telepathy. They went first to one of the nearby large temple complexes, with tall torii gates and wide tree-lined avenues. There were gardens inside the vast complex with flowers bursting from the lawns, prayer flags and dozens of little shops selling fortunes, amulets, and other tokens.

Sonya felt the occasional tickle in the back of her mind that was Kenshi, the faintest brush like a hand on the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. It was infrequent, usually only around large crowds of people as if he needed to use her as an anchor. She would let him make the fine arcs with the cane, and she couldn’t tell how much of it he was actually using and how much was for show.

“Enough,” he answered when she asked him directly. “Without Sento, I am not quite as skilled.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that.” She snorted in disbelief. He tilted his head in a way she was quickly learning was his equivalent to a raised eyebrow, or a skeptical narrowing of the eyes.

“I take advantage of what I am given. Why should I not use my telepathy, or the spirits’ guidance, when I have it?”

“Opportunist.”

“I fail to see a problem with this.”

“Really?” She turned, and caught the curve of his mouth as he spoke. “You’re just all-out with the bad puns and jokes today.” She was at a loss with what to do with her hands; she wasn’t used to not having something to do with them. This kind of idle walking wasn’t something she was remotely used to. No purpose - no point - no-

“The purpose is to enjoy the space,” Kenshi said. She stiffened, when he’d clearly been reading her mind, but he put a hand on her arm as if to ward her rage off. “The entire purpose of this is aesthetics. The serenity of the space, the beauty of the plantings, the way things combine to yield a particularly pleasant combination of sunlight and flowers and what-have-you. It is not about rushing from one place to another.”

“Yeah, well, this isn’t usually what I do. There’s… we should be _doing_ something.”

“We’ll spend the afternoon doing something. We can go down to Roppongi, Yoshiwara, or Kabuchiko after and you can worry on things like a dog with a bone.”

“Calling me a bitch now?”

“I am smarter than that. But if the shoe fits…”

“Ass,” she snorted, smacking him lightly in the shoulder. “I just don’t take time off. This feels too damn strange, not being at work. Not doing something. Walking around the middle of a big city in another country and sightseeing.” She tried to give him a pointed glare, but lack of eye contact made it difficult. “Hell, there aren’t even _benches_ around for me to sit down and look at this all.”

“If you insist,” he said with perfect composure and neutrality, “we’ll head out now. It won’t be as busy, but it will give you a feel for what’s in the area.”

“Can we? Anything but… this.” She gestured around them, and he held out his arm a bit, enough for her to curl hers around, a mixture of guide and girlfriend.

“Lead on to the metro station, then.”

“That - actually, many of these,” Kenshi said softly as they walked past a building not much later, “are effectively brothels. You’d never be admitted in. Most don’t allow foreign men in.”

“So you’re going to go investigate solo?” Sonya snorted in disbelief. “Like to see you try to expense that.”

“I might be a novelty, but no - not unless we must. And coming here in the day - well, at night imagine this all lit with neon.”

“Not hard to imagine,” she admitted; she could read enough to catch some of the subtle entendres. Her gaze skittered across the hundreds of different signs, mostly dim in the daylight. Restaurants and massage parlors, hostess clubs (and one she thought was a host club), pubs and bars - most of them darkened in the early afternoon. “So you’d just go in and…”

“Fill out an extensive questionnaire and then effectively order off a menu. If you have a fetish to fulfill, that would be how to do it. I don’t think that’s… what we’re interested in, however. Those are all very above-board, or as above-board as they can be. A little less for spontaneity, but if someone has a particular desire…” He let her fill in the implications for herself.

“So, this is where we’d go if you wanted to eat sushi off of someone?” She jerked her chin at a nondescript building, signage neatly lettered in the window that went far beyond her knowledge. She could read it, but had no idea of the meanings of the words. She felt the faintest tickle in the back of her skull, almost like a little itch. He chuckled.

“No, that’s if you would like to grope and fondle women in a pretend crowded metro carriage,” he said after a moment. “Actual penetrative sex is not permitted, but…” He trailed off again. “It’s not an uncommon desire. I’m surprised no one hasn’t tried to get their hands on you. There are other places - you can watch women bathe each other, or order coffee at a restaurant where none of the women are wearing underwear, and the floors are mirrored…” he waved a hand and she shook her head. “All of it is taxed, sometimes by the yakuza as well as the government, and women work for a few months or even years, making good money.”

“I could never do that.” Sonya shook her head.

“You sell your body,” he pointed out rationally. “They sell theirs. There’s no difference, except when it is not by choice, and that is why we’re here. I don’t sense anything - untoward.” He stepped to one side, and she leaned against the wall next to him. He slid a hand around her waist carefully, fingertips sliding around her, and she tilted her head on his shoulder. He bent over and spoke softly, breath warm against her ear. “There are women working here. I can sense their minds, but none who seem forced, unhappy. We should come back tonight, but it will be - overwhelming for my mind if we do.”

“So what do you want to do?”

His hand curled around her, the white-tipped cane tapping little arcs in front of them while she watched the people walking on the street, eyes skimming across all the men in suits, looking for the little lapel pins that would tell her who they wanted to follow. “Keep walking for a bit, then come back in the evening for dinner. I haven’t asked what you’re wearing, though I will guess a skirt by how your stride is shorter. Is it something you can ostensibly go clubbing in?”

“I can throw on some makeup and look like I have plans for a night of drinking, at least. And yes, a skirt.” His shoulder rose with a deep intentional inhalation. “Decent amount of leg, marginal cleavage. Why, need me to be a stereotypical dumb blonde?”

“If we find a branch office, yes.”

“Drop something and I bend over, I guarantee you there will be eyes on me and not on whatever you’re doing,” she replied. He chuckled and brushed a kiss against her head, fingertips digging in ever so slightly. The cane paused its tapping for a moment, and then resumed.

“That almost sounds like a challenge.”

“Don’t waste it,” she muttered, eyes still busy on the crowds as they leaned against the building. His fingertips moved from her waist, brushing over the lightly textured fabric of the skirt, then spread out over her ass proprietarily, out of public view. “And do not even try to get in my pants on a street corner in Tokyo.”

“Now that would be a challenge,” he agreed, “but this would possibly be the place we could get away with it, especially at night.”

“Hey,” she said, elbowing him. “I think I see a guy with the pin.”

“On it.” Suddenly professional, his hand spread out on the small of her back, and she felt the little tickle again as she tracked the man in a suit walking down the sidewalk near them. She stepped forward, taking Kenshi’s free hand in hers, linking their fingers, keeping the man in her sights.

She followed behind, occasionally stopping to ask Kenshi questions to which he murmured nonsense answers, tracking the man in his suit and his pin down two more blocks until he turned into a building, tall and glass-fronted, announcing the presence of various things, and she slowed and read the kana carefully. She heard him inhale sharply, try to turn her away, but she didn’t move. Clubs and a laundromat and KTV, but also a branch office of the-

“Takahashi-gumi? Are you _shitting me?”_ She hissed the words and squeezed his hands so hard she could feel the bone beneath them. “What the fuck did you lead us into? _”_

“I may have left a few things out.”

“You and your fucking _secrets-_ “ The anger bubbled up, fierce and hot like fresh-spilled blood.

“Would it help if I said it wasn’t my blood kin, as far as I know? Simply a coincidence?” His voice was cool and even.

“I wouldn’t believe you.” She could almost _see_ red, felt the little tickle that said he was still in her head, and tried to shove all the anger, sense of betrayal, frustration, dismay, confusion, at him. He almost staggered, and she felt him grip her hand to keep his balance. So there, asshole.

“Remember why we are here, Sonya.” She felt, she _felt_ him touch her mind, try to soothe her anger. He kept walking with her down another block and then something she’d’ve called an alley anywhere else. She leaned back against the wall and he put a hand on it beside her shoulder.

“Fuck cover, and fuck _you,_ ” she hissed again. He’d pulled the rug out from under her, and any idea of happy, complacent cover story girlfriend was gone. The heat of anger burned through her, her heart pounding her ears, and she felt him nudge her legs apart with one of his knees. “Your fucking _family_ is-“

“My family is not. My mother is not, my father is not, my family is not. I was, they are not, and this is not mine.” He dipped his head down, lips barely brushing against her ear. “Do I really seem like the type to run my own criminal empire?”

“You don’t want my answer.”

“The Takahashi-gumi are yakuza, and want to use you and I for their ends. I am a Takahashi, but I am not one of _them_.” He kissed her neck, close-mouthed and chaste, and then tipped his forehead against hers. From the corner of her eye, she saw him lean the cane against the wall. Moments later, his freed hand settled on her hip, a light touch. Anyone looking down here would think - _should_ think - it was just a couple sneaking away for a moment of privacy. She hoped the Japanese aversion to public displays of affection would make it uncomfortable to watch.

“You never dropped their name, not _once_. The fucking briefings just said a branch of the Shizuka-kai…”

“Which they are. Because this would have been your reaction. Jax said-“ He snapped his mouth shut, and she surged forward against him.She hit him with a forceful meaty thud, but he was planted too solidly on the ground and remained unmoved. She lolled back against the wall, breathing hard, and seethed as she planned her next move.

“Jax knew, too? What is this, keep me in the dark and feed me a string of bullshit?” She wanted to strangle him - both of them. It would be so easy to reach her hands up and choke him, or to get a low punch, make him double over, and then throw him against the wall and pummel him until he begged for mercy. “Over breakfast, I said no more damn surprises, and now this-“ She threw her hands up in the air in frustration. “I want to take you out and shoot you.”

“At least I didn’t propose?” His voice was dry, and she let out a startled snort of a half-laugh.

The quip muted some of her rage, and she hooked one ankle around one of his legs, tugging at him to throw him off-balance. He leaned against her instead, hand digging into her hips. She glared at him.

“So Jax knew, and you guys decided to keep this from me because…? I’m starting to get why Stryker was so unhappy.” Her heart pounded with anger and the little twist of betrayal, another secret kept from her. “Anything _else_ you’d like to share? Secret wife, hidden kid?”

“Not to my knowledge. And the group here wasn’t relevant. They are not my family, they are not kin, the name is truly coincidental. Like assuming every Blade is related to you.” He tilted his chin, and she had the urge to land a punch on that good-looking chin of his.

She growled again instead, and grabbed the lapels of his jacket. She went to yank him forward as he dropped his head towards her. Lips met in a hard kiss, crashing together. Their mouths slanted again each other, tongues sliding against each other, brushing against the sharp smooth lines of teeth. She was angry and frustrated, and there was no other way to show it than kicking his ass or - this. And it would be hard to get in the door if she’d given him a bloody nose or a black eye. She didn’t know what the reason on his end was, but she didn’t really care, the way he was responding. When she pulled away, she could feel the tingle in her lips, the reached up a hand to feel them, slightly swollen.

“I’m gonna kill you. And this is gonna be a damn good sell for when we walk in there and I’m pissed as hell.” She snarled the words as quietly as she could, and he kissed her again, as hard as before, her back up against the wall, and she knotted her hands in his jacket, holding him against her. She made a throaty sound, their teeth clicking together, and he made a soft moan into her mouth, his leg sliding up between hers. The contact of his pants on the bare skin of her thighs beneath the skirt made her hiss.

“Good. The angrier the better.”

“Trust me, I’m about ready to murder you.” She freed her hands, digging her nails into her palms. “This is absolute, unmitigated bullshit.”

“We go in, you listen, I talk.”

“I’m going to murder you and Jax both. You first and him later. Dump the bodies in Outworld, or maybe just sell you off to the Tarkatans by the pound. I’m sure they’d love to get a taste.” 

“Well, it’s been said I am worth my weight in gold.” He ran his thumb along her lower lip and she bit down on the fleshy tip. He made a rough noise of pained surprise and pulled away.

“Swear to God, Takahashi, I’m gonna kill you.” She took a deep breath and let out a shuddering exhale. “I seriously cannot tell if I want to fuck you or kill you half the time. It’s a fifty-fifty split these days.” She reached up, and pulled his sunglasses down, staring straight into his sightless white eyes. “We’re going to go in there, and do the thing, and then we’re going back to the hotel and we’re going to have this out.”

“Promise?”

“I’m calling home first,” she said with vicious sweetness, “and catching them up on whatever happens. And then we’re going to sort this out.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes from me: 
> 
> \- I’m heading out of town for a chunk of next week and my buffer is not as great as it should be, so I’ll be skipping my Aug 1 update. Chapter 13 will be expected to go up Aug 8. If you go click ‘subscribe’ at the top of the page, it’ll make sure AO3 sends you an e-mail when the chapter goes up!
> 
> \- I’ve lost myself in a lot of research for this fic - way more than I expected when I first jotted down the idea! I've learned a lot of really cool stuff and I'm having to restrain myself from having worse story bloat in order to integrate some of it. Suffice to say, I've read deeply, read fairly widely, and there's a lot of really cool stuff that makes me want to stop now and totally rewrite this and do a whole bunch more exploration, but I won't/shouldn't.
> 
> -Yes, the Takahashi-gumi are real. I also have zero info on them so any resemblance is purely for the sake of story and entertainment with Kenshi’s “oops I kind of hoped your ability to read Japanese was shittier than it apparently is”.


	13. Off Kilter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the week off, folks! Back now! :)

They walked up to the offices ten minutes later, Sonya looking composed but still angry. She slid a sidelong look at Kenshi, his lips faintly reddened and swollen; hers must have looked much the same. She plastered on the smile she’d used during any kind of formal public function, the polite one that said she’d rather shoot herself than be here, but obligation was obligation. Kenshi chuckled once, his hand resting loosely on her forearm.

“You can take it out on me later.”

“Oh, I intend to. With distinct fucking prejudice.” She smiled more broadly, and then met the eyes of one of the yakuza standing at the door. He took a step back, and she felt Kenshi’s fingers press down on her arm slightly, as if in warning - or acknowledgement.

They bowed politely in greeting and Kenshi presented a business card - no, a pair of them, she could see one slid carefully beneath the next in a small feat of legerdemain. The man looked over both cards, and then the two of them, and motioned them inside. It was almost a lost cause for Sonya after that; the conversation launched immediately into Japanese. She managed to catch about a quarter of it, all polite language that she could catch bits of but never enough to feel useful. She smiled and stood around with her parade-rest expression. Her eyes skimmed the room for any and all identifying things, committing it all to memory. Even if she didn’t know what it was she was seeing, she’d be able to write it up or sketch it poorly once they were out of sight. Her art skills left a lot to be desired.

Sonya declined a seat as the business suit clad men chatted, and kept her eyes skipping over the room, looking for anything of interest. It looked like a standard office, with filing cabinets and cork boards, a few pictures (she presumed of important members), and leaned against the wall, letting the Japanese wash over her. Kenshi looked entirely in his element - business suit cut perfectly (damn Cage for his good taste), gesturing and discussing things smoothly. There were pauses,even what she could tell were carefully chosen words and ideas. The general idea seemed to be the attempted propositioning of Kenshi to rejoin the yakuza - an appeal even now to the serendipitous sharing of a surname. He deferred, pointing out that he neither lived in Japan now, nor could he - should he - put the weight of this relationship at risk. He hadn’t intended to return to the fold, his visual impairment limited the use he could have, but he would consider it. But there was a _woman_ involved - and all eyes settled on Sonya for a moment, and she smiled again - and surely they could understand his reluctance?

Women, they said, they could promise him, ones more exotic than even his blonde American. They had allies, they had arrangements, for women who were unlike anyone Kenshi had ever, or could ever, meet.

At that point, Sonya pushed herself off the wall.

“Bathroom?” She asked, her Japanese as badly-accented and full of Texan drawl as she could muster. One of the men eyed her, turned to the man behind the desk, and back to Sonya.

“Out the door, down the hall, last door on the left.”

“Thank you,” she said politely, and stepped out of the room. Down the hall - and if it was the _last_ door on the left, that meant there was at least one, probably more, on the left. And some on the right, to set them apart. She walked purposefully out of the room and down the hall, tripping a little on the threshold of the door and bending down to catch herself. There was the faintest tickle in the back of her mind, and she pushed feelings of smugness out towards Kenshi, catching a few muttered words from the others in response as she collected herself and stood up again, straightening her skirt.

She’d know just how much they gossiped by whether or not someone commented on red lace or not when she got back - or if Kenshi did.

Sonya walked down the hall; one door on the right was open, looking a lot like another office. Unoccupied, window looking on an alley by the thin grey light pouring through it. She or Kenshi should be able to get in, all things considered, if needed. The next door was on the left, and she spared a glance behind her before peeking into it. It was a large storeroom, full of boxes and crates and several person-sized wardrobes. She moved towards those unerringly, opening one and then the other to find them apparently empty. Relieved, she closed them and backed away, looking at the crates and boxes that filled the rest of the room. Some of them were identical to the Black Dragon crates that she and Kenshi had intercepted, and some were different. This, then, would have been the final resting place of the beam emitters and the handguns.

She began counting the crates, keeping half an eye on the door as she prowled the perimeter of the room.

“Ai!” There was a short sharp bark from the door. “ _Saigo no doa_ , no _saisho no doa_.”

“Oh,” Sonya said, as she turned around, eyes wide. _Last door,_ he’d said. Not _first door_. She’d deliberately misunderstood, but he looked like he was ready to believe her to be an idiot. Her curiosity about the crates was high, and her first reaction was to knock him out. She could see the string of blows easily: kick to the gut, short pullback and kick to the jaw, then grab him around the throat and drop into a chokehold. He’d barely have enough time to let out a sound if she managed to chain it together with the right speed.

But that would blow her cover, and this skirt would impair her movement. The idea of stripping it off to kick his ass was possible - but then it would wreck all of this before she was anywhere near done.

“Not here,” the man said in careful English. “I show you.”

“Oh good!” Sonya said with the brightest smile she could throw, making note of just how many crates there were, and the dimensions. “I was really confused why you’d have your bathroom in the storeroom!”

“I show you,” the man repeated, opening the door for her. “Follow.” She smiled again and tittered - and that _hurt_ to do.

“Thank you,” she said in her most polite Japanese, ducking into the bathroom and shutting the door firmly behind her. She pressed a few buttons on the control panel for the toilet (how many buttons did someone _need_!?) and closed her eyes, committing the room’s layout and the details to memory, before running the tap and scrubbing at her face. She turned off the tap, and opened the door again, smiling cheerfully and obliviously at the suited man in front of her.

“Thanks so much,” she said, reaching out to touch him, and making him step back quickly, almost bumping into the wall as he did. She made a small mental note of that, and followed him back down the hallway to the office.

“Everything all right?” Kenshi quirked a brow.

“I got lost, but he took care of me,” Sonya said with a lackluster smile. “Who knew words could sound so similar, right?” She leaned back against the wall, thinking as loudly as she could about the need to get out and go over their new plan of attack. She kept her eyes on him, watched as he splayed out one hand wide on his thigh, all five fingers extended, and hoped that was a sign for five more minutes.

It was, and she was able to follow the polite farewells and make her own, pushing off from the wall to bow. She watched as he collected his cane and waited for the cue for his arm - whether she’d be taking it, or if he would walking out under his own power. Kenshi didn’t reach for her, so she trailed behind him. Her heartbeat picked up, and the slow fire of anger began to lick its way along her again. They walked in silence to the closest metro station in unspoken agreement, Sonya keeping alert for anyone following them. There was no sign of it, but she made an extra effort to catch a tail by pausing to fumble for their rail cards. Satisfied, she looked over a map to make sure she could get them back to the hotel without incident, and they cleared through the gates.

They waited in equal silence, the anger still burning low and hot in the pit of her stomach, dancing along her nerves. The platform was busy enough, and

she dropped into a seat beside him and rested her head on his shoulder, speaking quietly. “Made a mistake, ended up in a storeroom with some stuff that looks like what we found at home. Not sure how much dumb blonde I managed to pull before I got pointed to where I should have been.”

“You were gone long enough they were concerned. Some comments were made about the amount of time women take, but you exceeded even that.” Kenshi tucked an arm casually around her as the subway bounced on the tracks.

“First door, last door, close enough to an idiot foreigner like me, right?” She looked down at her hands. “I still want to choke you.”

“Not on public transit, please,” he murmured in response. “That would be difficult to explain.”

“I’d find a way,” she promised, and earned a soft chuckle. Her fingers knotted in the fabric of her skirt and she had to force herself to uncurl them. “You really don’t get it, do you? You’ve… this isn’t where I belong, I don’t fit in or understand half of what’s going on. I don’t want to deal with your… family any more than I have to.”

“We can talk about this when we get back to the room.” Kenshi’s voice was cool and even, and it infuriated her even more. She sucked in a breath and gritted her teeth together. He rested a hand on her knee, thumb flicking across her skin. She felt a shiver, and abruptly crossed her legs, taking it out from his reach. He pulled his hand back, resting it on his lap.

They were silent for the remainder of their ride, the carriage mostly unoccupied - too early for workers and students coming back after a day out. The tension between them thickened until they made it back to the hotel room.

Once the door was shut behind her, she leaned against it and then slid down against it to the floor, closing her eyes and resisting the urge to throttle him. It was proving very, very difficult. She seethed.

“I want to smack that smug smirk off your face. I’m… I have to drop Jax a summary of this, catch a some more sleep, and then call him tonight,” she informed Kenshi conversationally, levering herself up off the floor. “You can go do whatever the fuck you want to do - it’s barely three in the afternoon - so there’s ample time to go play tourist or whatever. But this - I’m done being kept in the dark and fed a line of shit, whatever other secrets you have. I cannot be the ignorant dumb girlfriend.”

“Does it bother you that much?”

“So much about this bothers me.” She rolled her head around on her neck. “Alright. Fuck. We need to come up with a plan of action for this. I want to get into those boxes, see what there is in that storeroom, and in those offices. One that doesn’t involve me standing there and being bored off my ass and barely following _anything._ I haven’t felt so clueless since boot camp.”

“So you’re proposing some light burglary?” He dropped his sunglasses on the bedside table, pulled off his jacket and hung it up neatly on a hangar, and sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her with milky white eyes. “Tonight, tomorrow night…?”

“Not sure. Want to run it by Jax first, get his thoughts.”

“He is not running this operation with you. I am.” Kenshi’s voice seemed defensive, and she snorted.

“I can trust him. I’ve got to ream him a new asshole for not telling me exactly who we were dealing with, anyway. I’m thinking tomorrow makes more sense, they’ll be less suspicious. Except we have the dinner. Shit.” She frowned. “You can always do the dinner, I’ll do the B&E. Would be useful to have you along, though - telekinesis, literate in Japanese. I can just stake it out. Fuck, I just want to get my hands dirty.”

“Should I begin looking for illicit fight clubs?”

“Why, do think there are any I could have fun at?” She crossed her arms and glared at him, and watched as he began to unbutton his shirt, leaving it open and parted so that she could barely - barely - see the hint of the tattoos beneath it. Asshole. Fair being fair, she shimmied out of her skirt and flung it at him, watching him reach up barely in time to catch it. “I could use beating someone into the mats right now. Or into the ground.”

Kenshi patted the bed beside him, and she snorted. He slid his shirt off and set it neatly on the bed beside him, raising an eyebrow. “Mats right here.”

She grit her teeth and glared at him, hoping it seeped into her voice. “You wish. I want to just pound your face into them.”

“Come at me, then.” His voice stayed casual, and he stood up. “If it will make you feel better, come at me. No holding back, just avoid as much damage to the room as you can.”

She snorted with disbelief, but he made a beckoning gesture with one hand, widening his stance.

“Don’t think those pants were meant for fighting in. I’m not in the mood for playing, Kenshi. We’re barely a day into this and I’m already feeling like my CO’s prepping me to get bent over a barrel. I don’t like going in with all these unknowns.”

“I’m not offering to play. You’ll feel better when you get some of that anger out. Trust me - I know.” He motioned again. “And they have a good range of movement.”

She lunged forward, aiming a solid punch at his pecs, and he sidestepped her neatly. She didn’t overextend, catching herself and pivoting. He reached for her and she ducked away, slid a leg between his and tried to hook his ankle. The room filled with guttural noises and the sound of flesh meeting flesh, skin on skin and heavier breathing as the sparring progressed in the confined space. They went back and forth, where all he did was try to delay her, distract her, and she managed to connect several strikes while he only tried to grapple her. They were both breathing hot and heavy when she closed with him to try to punch his chest again and he caught her hand, then looped the other arm around her and drew her tight against him. She managed to catch his ankle on her second attempt and sent both of them tumbling down onto the bed hard enough to make it squeak once in complaint.

Sonya looked up at him, trying to decide what she wanted to do, but he managed to pin her with his weight. The heat of his body sank through her shirt, and she made a frustrated sound, mind whirling. She hated him, but _fuck_ he was hot, especially - because? - she was angry. He sat up, keeping her down under his weight; she could see the bulge in his pants, feel the press of it against her as he shifted her bodily, the better to work her out of her clothes.

He unbuttoned her blouse with a cool deliberation, as if giving her time to back out. He confirmed it when he didn’t strip it off her shoulders, but eased his hands away and his weight off her. It was clear she could get out from under him if she cared to, but she wove one hand into his hair and dragged him down to her. Their mouths clashed together in a kiss hot and wet and messy. She _hated_ him for a few moments, no matter how much her body wanted him at the same time. She hated everything about him, from that cocksure confidence to the telepathy and telekinesis and how goddamned _competent_ he was, and how he’d kept secrets from her for _years_ and she’d _trusted_ him. And damn him but he made her wet, and one of his hands slid between her legs and paused only briefly until she arched up against his touch.

She hated with a passion that burned bright and hot and angry. And then her shirt was gone and her bra was gone and they were naked and couldn’t get enough of each other. His weight pressed her down into the mattress, skin on skin and she bit down on his shoulder, on one of those perfectly-inked cherry blossoms, and sucked skin in, hard. He pushed down against her and growled deep in his throat, grinding his hips against hers. She did it again and again, nipping and sucking and studding him with her mark.

His hands didn’t glide gently across her, but grabbed and kneaded, pushed and tugged, and she let out her own growls and sharp breaths in response. He kissed her again, his mouth demanding every bit of her attention and focus. If he said he got sick on her, well - he’d have his fill tonight. She flipped him over onto his back with a well-timed twist, and he let out a grunt of surprise. He didn’t have much time before she sank down onto his cock, and gave both of them a few moments to adjust.

Her emotions had the better of her, and he seemed inclined to to give as well as he got; neither of them had any time for niceties. She knew he was going to leave at least one bruise on her with the way his hands dug into her hips, and she could see the red rising up, coloring where she’d sucked marks onto him. A fresh wave of mingled anger and lust surged through her. She tried every trick she had to draw him into a state of blind need, to make him beg, make him yield to her. She was in charge, she knew what to do, she had control. Not him. Not now.

He did beg, eventually, with his back arching off the bed as she pinned his hands down with her own, straddling him. She kept him from touching her with his hands and mouth, thighs and hips and the entirety of him settled fully inside her. His hands, his mouth, the sensitive skin he felt her, saw her, with - that was forbidden, for now.

“Sonya,” he groaned, trying with the fullness of his strength to find freedom, but finding it denied. “Sonya, please-“ He groaned and bucked up into her, and she ground herself down against him.

“No,” she answered him, fingers tightening. “Not yet.” She kept up the demanding rhythm, falling down onto him again and again until she felt her toes tingle, the rush of pleasure, her climax surging through her.

She stopped, though just for a moment, hands still pinning him in place. She looked at his face contorted with desire, the way his eyes narrowed but never fully closed. There was a part of her that considered getting up, now, and leaving him wanting. Just to be a bitch, just to make it clear that she didn’t have to be nice, didn’t have to share, didn’t have to play by any fucking rules except her own. And then she decided she would get more enjoyment out of it if she could drive him over the edge at her own leisurely pace, now that she’d gotten hers. That if he got off, it was on her sufferance.

She pulled her hands away, and he kept them still for a moment before they wrapped around her, chasing all the contact she’d denied him. They were strong hands, and she didn’t realize just how much she liked being touched until he made her wholly aware of it, fingers rolling her nipples between them, cupping and caressing and raking along every possible inch he could reach. He drew her down against him and cried out her name as his heels dug into the mattress, fingers holding her in place against him as his body went taut.

It was only at the end, in a tangle of limbs, that she finally managed to relax again, the tension and built-up frustration washed away. She rolled away, and felt one of his hands drift along the curve of her spine, fingertips a bare tracery against her skin.

“Feeling better now?” His voice was low, catching, and he coughed slightly to clear it.

“I still don’t know if I should trust you,” she said as she caught her breath, tried to steady it. “What other secrets are you keeping? What’s the next thing you’ll oops-forgot-to-tell me?”

“If I told you, they would not be secrets anymore,” he pointed out, the hand snaking over to settle around the arch of her ribs once more. She felt his warmth behind her, and despite everything she didn’t want to knock him away, not when he wasn’t pulling away himself, not when he’d dragged her down to him at the end. “No secrets that are a risk to you, or would bring harm to you, or that you would be harmed by not knowing.”

“That’s pretty careful equivocation. Every time I think I’ve got you nailed, you pull something else out. Anything else you and Jax decided to keep from me? Waiting for just the right moment to reveal?” She drew her knees up towards her chest, sweat cooling on her skin, feeling unaccountably fragile.

“Not as far as I’m aware. I cannot speak to your friend and what he is concealing.”

“Great.” She let out an exasperated sigh, and tensed slightly as she felt his fingertips resume their careful brushing back and forth across her skin. “So, feel like a little B&E tonight if you don’t want to do it tomorrow?”

“You have terrible impulse control.”

She rolled over finally, looking up to meet his eyes, and poked him in the chest, in the bare space between tattoos. “Pot, meet kettle.” His fingers stayed curled around her, pressed a little as if to urge her closer to him, but she didn’t move. He blinked - she thought about it for a moment, realizing it must be biological necessity more than true need - and watched as his eyes glowed with the faintest hint of blue for a moment. She couldn’t see anything moving, wondered what he’d needed Sento’s spirits for, but shrugged it off.

“I am not impulsive, just unable to turn down a challenge,” he countered with a grin that somehow made her want to throttle him a little bit less. Just a little bit. “But I think they would be on alert tonight. It would be better tomorrow - if I can manage to politely avoid most of the drinks - or even the day after, if you can stomach that.”

“I’ll talk with Jax,” she said finally, yawning despite herself, “and we’ll decide.” She rolled her shoulders back, and swung out of the bed. “I’m going to catch some shut-eye so I can have this talk with a clear head. You want to go out, you’re welcome to it, but I’m not feeling afternoon tourism.”

“Reasonable,” Kenshi said, his hand dropping to the bed as she stood. “We should still go back to Kabukicho, or somewhere else, for some further investigation tonight.”

“Fine. Let me clean up, have some shut-eye, and then we can go out again. You can do whatever.” She waved a hand in his general direction, and when she returned a few minutes later, found him half-dressed and sitting cross-legged on the floor with Sento across his thighs. She shrugged and pulled on her shirt and shorts before setting an alarm. “I need about two hours and then I’ll be ready to go out again. That work for you?”

His face turned slightly towards her and he nodded.

“You’re the boss.”

“Glad you’re realizing that.”


	14. What's The Worst That Could Happen

Sitting at the little table, Sonya sighed and looked at her laptop and Stryker’s dour expression on the other end. She cradled a cup of instant coffee in her hands, feet kicked up on the empty chair across from her. The hotel room was quickly becoming cramped, and she missed her desk. Fuck, what was wrong with her that she missed her _desk_?

“So is there anything that cropped up during the day, then?” She looked at him over the rim of her cup. An ocean away, he shook his head, made a noncommittal noise.

“Got some feelers out, comparing reports for last known sightings of Kabal or any of his bunch. It looks like they were somewhere in Southeast Asia in the last few weeks, but that’s a lot of countries, a lot of space. Whether it was Vietnam or Indonesia or the Philippines most recently is anyone’s guess. Sneaking suspicion it’s Philippines, had more than one report of him in Mindanao, but… that’s like someone saw him in Indiana or something. Lot of area to cover.”

“Copy,” Sonya sighed, taking a deep drink from her mug. “Well, tonight we have some bullshit dinner and then maybe some light extracurricular activities at night. Not sure yet. Did Jax get you updated? It’ll depend on how everything goes at the dinner. Everything I hear says that I may be pouring Kenshi back into a cab or onto the metro, so I’m not sure I want to take him out for any really early morning… excitement.”

“Good call. Jax gave me the overview, and that you two were heading back into the thick of it after you called. How’d that go? And where is your partner, anyway - lose him in some den of iniquity?” Stryker raised an eyebrow. She frowned slightly and snorted.

“He’s off hunting down breakfast, which he offered to get so I could do this. I have no idea what I’m going to end up with,” she admitted, sipping from the coffee. Stryker laughed.

“Letting the blind man do the shopping? You’re a brave woman. Let me put you in for a commendation or whatever it is we do here.”

“Hey, it’s his old territory, I figure I can rely on him to handle that with a minimum of problems. It’s the rest of this shit I struggle with.” She stretched out again, wiggling her toes, and something in her back popped softly. “Last night went tolerably well for a base assessment of the situation. Kenshi found some places where the employees definitely aren’t there willingly, but it’s the kind of solicited-and-overstayed-your-visa type of visit. He couldn’t identify any of the women specifically, just where they were. He’s going to figure out how to drop some words in the right ears of the right people to get those dealt with. Nobody kidnapped, nobody smuggled, from what he could perceive.”

“That is a fucking mess.” Stryker rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “It’s like a needle in a haystack when you’ve got a limited metal detector.”

“You’re telling me. I wanted to bust in there immediately, but apparently, sometimes they’ll charge the women with immigration violations and deport them in response. Which is the last damn thing I want. Can’t be too aggressive, when the industry’s actually supported and _most_ of the women are treated well, raking in lawyer-level big bucks. I want these predatory assholes caught and their business shut down, and preferably have them used as live-fire practice, but…” She clenched her hands and tipped her head back, exhaling slowly. “I’m gonna let him lead on this. Don’t want to fuck up those women’s lives more than they’ve already been fucked up. But they’d better hope they don’t find me in a dark alley.”

“Nobody ever wants to find you in an alley,” Stryker said with a snort. “You’re a nightmare.”

“Shit, I can tell I’ve been gone too long if this is the backtalk I’m getting from my subordinate.” She flipped a middle finger at him and he matched it in response. They both laughed, and for a moment she missed him, the partner in crime in her office. Stryker was not complicated, and she liked not complicated right now. “We’ve got nothing on today until this thing tonight, and if I thought we could do it today, I would. I just think that a daytime op would be tricky at best. I just… I’m not made for this tourist role, you know?”

“Jax told me about your escapade yesterday, anyway.”

“Escapade.” She exhaled heavily. “Like you wouldn’t have tried the same thing.”

“And probably gotten away with a hell of a lot less,” Strkyer admitted. “Look, you’re doing the best you can, all right? And it’s not easy, but you’re doing solid work for the first day. Just keep this up and you’ll be back onsite and bitching at the rest of us in a week or so. We’ll do burgers and beer at that place down the road from HQ and you can regale us with your awful acting and count how many people’s necks you wanted to snap with your thighs but didn’t.”

“I can only fucking wish,” she swore, and then turned around as the door opened, all her nerves suddenly on alert. Kenshi shouldered it open, and stepped inside, bags in his hands.

“Hey, what happened to your neck?” Stryker’s voice was surprised, and she looked back to the screen, keeping her expression locked down. Shit, there must be something from last night. She was going to murder the man behind her. Violently. With great prejudice. And heave his body into the ocean depths. No one would ever find it.

“Dunno. Mosquitoes are hell here. Bug bite maybe?” She shrugged, sitting squarely in front of the screen and taking a sip of her coffee, trying to look nonchalant. “As long as everything’s good on your end, nothing new since last night, we’ll keep rolling as-is. Looks like my breakfast’s here, and once we get this op planned out we’ll be in touch. You keep me up to date.”

“Let you know if I’m booking my own plane tickets.”

“I’ll back you up,” she offered, and he snorted, waving blunt fingers at her.

“You got your own job to do. Need someone responsible over there who won’t go off half-cocked at the first hint of a challenge.”

“I think I should be offended,” Kenshi interjected, handing Sonya another cup and a small brown bag, “but you have a fair point.”

“Good luck,” Stryker offered, and Sonya rolled her eyes.

“You too. Let me know if you need that backup.”

“Watch out for the bugs.”

“Believe me, I will.” She disconnected the call and waited for the confirmation the camera was off before she closed the laptop and looked at Kenshi. “I’m fucking _marked_ , apparently.”

“I would apologize, but neither one of us were complaining at the time.”

“When the hell did you get my _neck?_ ” She reached up behind her, fingers grazing over the fine hairs of her neck. The sensation made the hairs stand up, even though it was her own hand doing it, and she felt around for whatever mark. Her fingertips found sensitive flesh, sore when she pushed on it. It was about the size of his mouth. Cocky bastard.

“Several possibilities,” he said evenly, pulling out several containers and settling himself down at the desk. “I take it you were unaware?”

“Absolutely unaware,” she snapped, “or I would have covered it up before I had a _conference call with Stryker_.” She stood up and ducked into the bathroom; it was just off enough she couldn’t see it without contorting, but caught the faint red swell. Not purple, then, or a rich dark red - it might pass as an insect bite, rather than a mosquito. Her voice was acid when she spoke again. “You know, the pretty perceptive _ex-cop_?”

“You’ll pardon the blind man for being unaware of what you look like. I can certainly feel the marks you left on me.”

“Though those are entirely covered up,” she countered irritably, and then sighed and walked back to the table. She opened the bag in front of her, pulling out her breakfast.“Alright, I cannot get this bent out of shape this early in the morning. No news from home, at least nothing we have to care about. We’re good for the dinner tonight and I’m thinking tonight or tomorrow for the office investigation, depending on how sober you manage to be tonight.”

“Tomorrow,” he said after a few moments. She blinked in surprise. “I will need to drink, and possibly heavily, tonight. It is customary. I cannot be assured how much I will be able to avoid, and I will not put the operation at risk. One night for this, tomorrow night for that, and hopefully they will be off their guard by then.”

“Somehow this seems more like a vacation than an op.”

There were several long minutes of silence before Kenshi’s voice broke into the room again. “I do not enjoy drinking heavily. It impairs my abilities and gives me less ability to tune things out. I will need you to ground me, to keep me from doing anything that would be too - rash.”

“Whoa,” she said, waving a hand. “You’re saying I’ll need to talk you _out_ of doing something ridiculous and risky? Where’s the real Kenshi Takahashi? Did they swap you with a pod person? Is this some Shang Tsung bullshit?”

“It could be worse,” he said dryly. “There could be karaoke involved.”

“Take that back.” Sonya crossed her arms and glared at him. “That’s absolute bullshit.”

“It could happen,” he said,

She hated every minute of it, sitting politely on the low chair at the restaurant, eavesdropping. The food was good at least, and she had slow, polite conversations in Japanese and English with the people settled nearby her. They barely had a cover story in place, but built up five years of a relationship in a few joking quips and half-exchanges, just enough real stories that meant they wouldn’t slip up. She adjusted the gold satin blouse she was wearing, felt Kenshi’s fingers brush against her and then a small noise of satisfaction, then go back to gesturing. She

It came out that she was a fighter - she stressed pointedly that she had been, that wasn’t what she was doing now. Now she was an administrative assistant for a LA-based organization. Yes, she and Kenshi had met in the fighting circuit - yes, he’d landed her on her ass more times than she’d like to count, but that was rather long ago. Now she simply handled meetings and appointments and keeping the company running smoothly. She wasn’t that good with people.

She kept pace with the drinking as best she could, taking small sips and watching the play-by-play across the table as Kenshi was wooed towards the yakuza family again. There were arrangements being made, and she pretended to busy herself with eating as she tried to focus on the conversation happening several seats over.

There was an integrated resort, Japan’s first, that was finishing construction in Osaka. It was already technically open though some of the behind-the-scenes work hadn’t yet been completed, and the Takahashi-gumi was part of the greater syndicate, the Shizuka-kai, that owned the construction company, and the catering company, and the entertainment label, that the resort used. All upstanding companies, of course - and all rife for money laundering. The challenge they were having was in getting some last pieces of equipment in from America and some other locations.

“We will offer the clientele, the high rollers, something truly exotic,” one of the men said, breathing out a stream of cigarette smoke. Sonya’s nose wrinkled - she loathed the scent. “We have connections further afield that will bring something out of this world to them, but we are not quite there yet. It would be helpful to have some contacts in Los Angeles to…” he trailed off, taking another drink of sake. “Facilitate things. And it would be easy enough to hire her,” and he jerked a chin at Sonya, “as an administrative assistant, or English teacher, for some of the staff. It would allow you to travel internationally easily.”

“I cannot imagine her as an English teacher,” Kenshi snorted. “But I will discuss it with her later.”

“Discuss what with me?” Sonya leaned over and whispered in Kenshi’s ear.

“Later.” Beneath the table, one of his hands spread out on her thigh. He squeezed once, as if in warning. “We should not make hasty plans. Perhaps we can adjust our plans to go to Osaka, and visit it before you make a commitment.”

“Sounds good. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone out for something like that.” She laughed softly, and her stomach knotted at the artificial sound. “Vera tried to get me to go before we left, but I didn’t. So it could be fun. Can we change our plans?”

“We will make arrangements, get you a room,” one of the men offered, pulling out a phone. “How many more days do you need to be in Tokyo?”

“Three days,” Kenshi said. “We still have to see some things and my family.”

“We will make arrangements,” the man said, and Kenshi squeezed her thigh again, and her stomach twisted once more. She didn’t like how the choices were being pulled away from her, how easily Kenshi was taking the reins, even if it was mostly for show. She felt his hand inch downward and find the fabric of her pants, and it was as if he was looking for the hem of a skirt. She stifled a snort and turned her attention back to the chicken in front of her, managing deftly enough with her chopsticks.

“That would be very kind of you,” she said instead, and let the bubble of Japanese fall around her again until the end of the meal, when she heard one word repeated several times, and swore, not particularly softly.

“I don’t sing,” Sonya said, shaking her head as they walked up the steps with nearly a dozen others, mostly men in suits, late that night. The lights were bright and Kenshi’s arm was tucked around her waist possessively, his tie hanging loose, the smell of alcohol on his breath. He’d managed to avoid drinking as much as his new peers, and she’d managed to dodge more - but he definitely was on his way to drunkenness.

“You sing, you sing,” one of the men informed her, gesturing easily. There were a few other women, and they all grinned at Sonya and nodded. “We all sing.”

“I don’t sing,” she repeated, hoping it could be true. “I just-“

“Just sing once, with the other women, you’ll be fine,” Kenshi said into her ear. “There should even be lyrics, you just have to - well, sing them.”

“Great,” she muttered, and wished she could hold her head in her hands, but instead waited in the foyer of a building that looked more like a hotel than a place to sing. Her skin prickled and her stomach twisted with discomfort. Kenshi’s hand spread out on her side, drawing her back against him. ”This is not what I agreed to. Who does business negotiations over karaoke?”

“You’ll be fine,” he reassured her, and whether it was the lubrication of alcohol or the jovial atmosphere or something else, he kissed her neck, brushing warm lips briefly across her skin. She felt a twinge down below her stomach, a twist of pleasure, at the contact. “One, maybe two, and you’ll be able to have done your part and we can make excuses and get out of here before the metro stops running.”

She reached for her academic knowledge from guidebooks. “Yeah, heard sometimes it’s cheaper just to rent one of these rooms until the metro picks up, rather than get a cab.”

“We won’t have that problem.” His fingers slipped over her hip, pressed her against him briefly, before loosening the grasp. They followed at the tail end of the group, heading down the hall and up an elevator, eventually ending up in a well-outfitted private room. A bottle of beer was pressed into her hands almost immediately. “More alcohol?”

Kenshi settled down beside her, his hands loose and easy, keeping her closest to the door and himself between her and everyone else. One played against the shiny smooth satin of her blouse, rubbing the fabric, brushing it across the backs of his hands and the slightly roughened callus of his fingertips. He leaned into her ear again. “I want to keep touching this.Did you have Vera check this out?”

“You should have seen the sales floor assistant,” Sonya replied, taking a tiny swig of beer. “I think she thought we were lesbians about to start going at it, the way Vera was checking everything.”

“I owe your friend my deepest thanks.” His breath held more than a little booze, and she felt the way his hands kept sliding across the satin wherever they could. The heat of his hand permeated the fabric, a running warmth along her back and side. “When we get back tonight,” he pressed his mouth close to her ear, “I want to take you to bed in this shirt. And nothing else.”

“Asking a lot,” she replied, her eyes on the rest of the room as someone started picking out songs and building a queue. “Maybe I’ll spill something on it, need to take it off and get it washed.”

“That would be a tragedy.” His fingers dipped down at her back, tugging at the fabric. She leaned back against the cushioned of the couch, and squashing his hand in place. The muscles flexed, and she kept him pinned there.

“Watch it. No PDA in public, remember? That’s what you told me.” Her voice was sickeningly sweet, and his fingers pressed on her slightly, just enough that she pulled away and let him take his hand back.

“Just wait,” Kenshi promised in a rough voice that made heat pool in her core. She had an abrupt urge to press her thighs together, and shook it off.

“All talk, no action,” she replied quietly, feigning another drink from her beer as someone began to sing one of the latest pop songs. Her eyes kept busy on the room, the conversations forming up around the distraction of the singing. Lubricated by alcohol and a slowly-built rapport, the attitude and atmosphere in the room shifted slowly. Kenshi rose at one point, placing a hand squarely on her shoulder and using it to lever himself up. She raised a brow, watched him follow three half-sloshed yakuza out the door, and then she settled back against the couch, watching the room. Everyone was equally drunk or on their way to it, and the way the karaoke began, everyone was far too willing to just go along with it.

Kenshi wasn’t gone long, maybe fifteen minutes at the most, before returning with long, easy strides to drop down on the couch next to her. She felt a smile flicker onto her face, and she wasn’t sure if it was for show or not - he still looked too damn good in the suit, cut perfectly to fit him, even though it was half-rumpled now. The sunglasses, at night and indoors, made her roll her eyes - but it was easy to slide to one side again, make room for him beside her. He smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and the outdoors.

“Sonya, we need to leave,” Kenshi murmured in her ear. “We need to leave now. Make a little scene, please.”

“Mmm?”

“Trust me, we need to, now, or this is going to all go south.” He slid a hand around her again, pressing his mouth against her face, and she could feel the faint scratch of his beard, the wet heat of his breath. “I’ll tell you as soon as I can but you need to trust me on this.” He sounded serious, and she frowned slightly, and pushed him away.

“All right.” She reeled back, pitching her voice higher. “Have you been smoking?”

“I know you don’t like it,” he began, “but-“

“I’m out of here,” she snapped, standing up. She turned on one heel with military precision, hoping he followed - the best justification for an exit she could manage on short notice. Improvisation was _definitely_ not her thing, but he’d asked. The dinner had drained her, the listening to singing - some being markedly better than others, but none sounded particularly good several drinks in - had made it worse. Her temper flared, and she found it coming all too easily. She pushed past him and two other men towards the door, down the hall, with Kenshi following behind her, hand running along the side of the hall as a guide.

“Sweetheart, relax. It was just while we-“

“I’m going back to the hotel. You can stay here and _smoke_ with your new business partners if you want, but then you can find your own way back.” She pushed the elevator button several times in quick succession as he caught up to her, and she turned her shoulders away from him brusquely. He caught onto her arm, fingers warm again though the fabric, and she paid no attention at all to whatever he was saying until they were shut in the elevator. He pushed her up against the wall and kissed the side of her neck.

“Something’s up,” he said, and she pushed him away slightly, dodging, mouth screwed up unhappily.

“I can figure that out. How bad is it?” She gave an exaggerated huff. He reached for her shoulder, and she ducked out from his grasp.

“We can do this now or I can let you go and spend the night out with them, get in a little deeper, get back in the morning.” The elevator dinged and she pushed out past him, out the door of the KTV building, down the stairs, Kenshi keeping close with her.

“Give me the rough idea now,” she said as he caught her wrist, lacing his fingers with hers. “Tell me _now_ or I’m going back,” she added loudly, angrily.

“It would simply be some more drinks and some other stops,” he said defensively, and moved to stand a little closer to her, voice dropping again. “They’re talking about a meeting tomorrow, something to do with that resort, the casino. I think I can get into it, but I need to keep up with this, and you’re miserable. Go back to the room, rest-“

“I can’t leave you solo on this, Kenshi. You’re my partner.”

“Trust me, Sonya.”

“Fine.” She wriggled off one of the silver bracelets and slid it onto his wrist. “Tagging your ass, though. Gonna get it running to track you down to the square meter.” She looked up at him, and forced the smile she wanted to have off her face. “I’d say I’m sorry about this, but you’ve got to have something.”

“What do you mean?”

She reached up and slapped him hard across the face, fingers stinging, and watched him take two steps back, reaching a hand up to his jaw and rubbing at it. There was a twist of his lips she thought might have been a smile, a tiny dip of his chin, before she whirled around. She hated this - she couldn’t, shouldn’t, let him run solo. He was _blind_ , for fuck’s sake, blind and her subordinate and her responsibility. But there was no way she’d get the details on this if she stayed, and no way he’d get them if he had to babysit her. She had to trust him, even if this went against every element of training she had.

She pulled out her phone on the subway and wrote messages to Jax and Stryker, giving them the key data, and then began bouncing texts back and forth with Vera until exhaustion overtook her. She stripped, showered, wrung out her hair, and dropped into the bed.

She heard the door open and close, and sat upright in the bed, abruptly awake. The smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol and the slighter underlying scent of something else wafted in with Kenshi as he walked straight for her, unerringly. He pocketed his sunglasses in the suit jacket and stopped only when he connected with the low bed.

“Well?” She yawned, rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Smells like you had a hell of a time.”

“There’s another organization they’re dealing with.” Kenshi’s voice was low and a little rough and coldly serious. “And they’re sending a representative for a meet tomorrow night, and they want me there. You’re… not needed.”

“And who’s the organization? And representative?” Her stomach dropped, and she already had more than a suspicion.

“The Black Dragons.” He took a breath, and met her gaze, milky-white eyes to her own. “And they’re sending Kabal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life's starting to get Complicated, so I'm going to move to a once-every-two-weeks schedule for right now. I may be able to update more often than that, but I have offspring resuming school, a spouse resuming work, resuming some of my own academic studies, and some other things happening that will gobble up more of my time, and I want to give this the attention it deserves rather than just churn out chapters to meet an arbitrary deadline.


	15. Plans Are Useless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Her fingers danced across the phone’s screen for what felt like the dozenth time. Sonya watched the connection attempt for Stryker, and cursed vigorously as her call bounced to voicemail yet again. It was longer than it should have been before she gave in and left a message. “Call me. Now. Operation got complicated. Kabal’s involved now. You need to get out here on the next flight, right now.” She kept mashing down on the icon, as if it would make him answer any faster.

She’d enlisted Kenshi into similar work simultaneously trying to reach Jax, and meeting with equal futility. What the hell were Stryker and Jax _doing_? Frustrated, she hauled out her laptop and began to bang out a pair of emails, demanding one or the other or both reach her immediately. Her fingers clicked angrily and aggressively on the keyboard as she wrote her message. Hitting send didn’t feel nearly as rewarding as it should have been.

“Where the fuck _are_ they?” She groaned with annoyance. “This is reasonable time to call them, too. There’s no reason to have both of them missing, not calling, unless something’s wrong. No messages from them - maybe something went bad -“

Kenshi reached across the table and squeezed her shoulder, and his fingers skimmed over the satin shirt. He let the fabric slide between his fingertips and arched an eyebrow. She didn’t duck her head, didn’t snarl in more irritation even though she wanted to. Before he’d walked in the door and dropped his bombshell, she’d been hopeful. His hand fell away, expression shifting back to neutral, when she pulled slightly away. That mood was killed.

“I am aware you are used to immediate responses whenever you ask for something, but occasionally the rest of the world does not leap to your demands.” He stepped around her carefully and walked to wear his clothes hung. “There’s a reason they’re not answering. They could be on the firing range, or sparring, or in meetings.”

“And it makes me nervous,” Sonya snapped back. “Look, we’ve got to come up with a plan for this. If I can’t get them on comms, I need to have something in place.” She exhaled, the initial push of adrenaline fading a little and finding herself buoyed by frustration, by rage, by pure determination. Fuck coffee when the Black Dragons were being dangled in front of her - caffeine had nothing on this rush. “If I can’t go to the meet I’ll wait as backup. Find a place and stick me there, I don’t care what the goddamned bill looks like. Host club or bar or brothel or cafe or whatever it is. Fuck the B&E in the office.”

“Sonya, we cannot plant you at a bar for hours.” Kenshi began to strip himself out of his clothes methodically, starting with the tie around his neck. “Even _your_ liver - and remember, I have heard you drink! - would have issues. I am certainly not going to assume we have the budget for a host club - that could be hundreds of dollars, if we could even get you admitted - and it’s not like you’d be able to see anything from there if there was a problem. You will have to trust me.”

“I can’t trust you. I don’t.”

“You have to.” His voice was implacable as he continued to shed the suit, the scent of cigarette smoke and bad cologne and perfume and alcohol wafting through the air. “I’m going to take a shower. Join me?”

“I’m not in the mood,” she growled, “and someone has to be dry if they call.” She still watched him as he stripped down, the muscle and bone and - if she looked closely enough - the reddish tint of the bruises from her mouth from the last time they’d fucked. If it had been any other night, any other time, she might have put the phone on the sink and gone to the shower with him, gotten into a little trouble. Now, she only seethed with anger and resentment.

He nodded, seeming wholly unconcerned, bundling the redolent clothes into a pile away from her, and then headed for the bathroom. He stepped inside and she heard water begin to run, and then Kenshi leaned out the door, face turned towards her.

“This _will_ work out. We are here to get a job done, and it will be done. It may not survive first contact with the enemy-“ She snorted audibly, and he continued on, “but we will do this. You may just need to give a little, bend, instead of breaking.”

“I won’t break,” she said waspishly. He arched another dark eyebrow and pulled his head and upper body back into the bathroom.

She hadn’t yet. Why would she start now?

There wasn’t much time to dwell on his words. Her phone rang, and she snatched it up into her hands. She swiped to accept the call and held it to her ear.

“Blade.”

“What the fuck have you gotten yourself into this time?” Jax’s voice was a little distant, a little tight. She could picture his jaw clenched, teeth not quite grinding together; it was a familiar enough look.

“Hey, I didn’t get myself into _shit_. It’s Kenshi, our little extra-special hidden secret, who’s dumped this extra shit in our laps.” She pulled the phone away and hit an icon, then dropped her phone onto the bed.

“You’re on speaker. I want both hands for this.”

“Don’t wanna overhear an international murder, Blade. And anyway, so are you,” he replied. “On speaker. Stryker’s here, and-“

“Heyyy, baby.” The voice caught her by surprise.

“What the fuck is _Cage_ doing on this call?”

“He was here - things are-“ Jax stopped. “We’ll deal with that later. Anyway. Where’s Kenshi?”

“Shower, cleaning up after his night of debauchery.” She looked down at the phone. “So here’s the story. We don’t have any clear leads on the girls, but it’s obvious that the Black Dragons and the local yakuza are closely involved. Kenshi’s getting in nice and cozy with them. Tomorrow night there’s a meet, and they’re sending Kabal. Kenshi’s going and we can’t figure out a fucking way for me to join him.”

“You may just have to-“

“Don’t you _dare_ say it, you sonnuvabitch,” Sonya hissed. “He needs backup, and personal experience tells me every time I split up with my partner, bad shit happens.” She jabbed her finger at the device, knowing he couldn’t see it. “I’ve got years of experience saying that’s a bad plan. I’m not going to deliberately risk him, too.”

There was a telling moment of silence on the other end of the line, an ocean away. “Point. But you don’t want to be left out.”

“That too,” she said grudgingly. “What am I supposed to do, sit around with my thumb up my ass? Where? We can’t wire him, we can’t get me in, I’m not some cartoon character who can leap buildings with a single bound or hang upside-down for hours outside a window, eavesdropping. I can’t meet a fake friend for drinks and spend three hours waiting around. What the hell do you want me to do?” Sonya groaned. “Outworld bullshit would be so much easier. Or just giving him half an hour then going in guns blazing and taking Kabal down.”

“There’s my Sonya.” Jax chuckled. “Worried you were gettin’ soft. No going in guns blazing, girl. For one, you’re not packing unless you snuck something in against protocol. Two, too much of a fucking risk. My gut is scout the location early, watch for vehicles, see if you can tag and track ‘em.”

“With what? Only tracing equipment you gave us are the bracelets. We might be able to…” Sonya trailed off, chewing on the inside of her cheek in thought. “There’s tech here, big tech. Maybe we can swing downtown tomorrow and get something to take apart and use as a cheap and dirty tag.”

“I’ll email you specs for what you want to look for,” Jax said. “Then if you get anything, I can walk you through breaking it down and making something that will work instead of being a halfassed mess that won’t do anything useful.”

“Kinda like Cage,” Stryker slid in, and Sonya choked back a laugh at the indignant sputtering she could hear. “Look, he’s here because - well, we were talking about bringing him in for special projects because he might be useful. And if this goes the way of needing a rich famous idiot to be a distraction, Cage is just the thing.”

“I can fight,” came the third voice. “You assholes know that.”

“Yeah,” Sonya said, “but we’ve gotta give you shit about it anyway.” She tipped her head back, and closed her eyes. “So tomorrow morning I’ll get up at the asscrack of dawn and go buy electronics, come back here, put together some trackers. Scout early, try to see which cars they use, make up a stupid excuse to get close and slap them on the cars. But what the fuck do we do about _Kabal_?”

At that moment, Kenshi emerged, towel around his waist. It had been a quick scrub - and haphazard; she could see a bit of bubbles streaking the side of his head, shampoo that hadn’t rinsed out fully. He sat down on the bed beside her, and she resisted the urge to brush the bubbles away. She folded her legs up to sit cross-legged, and shifted to give him space near the phone.

“Got Jax and Stryker,” she said to him. “They know they’re on speaker.”

“And me,” came Johnny’s voice. Kenshi raised an eyebrow, resting a hand on her leg for a brief moment, thumb sliding over her kneecap. She glared at him. He didn’t seem to care.

“Cage,” Kenshi said with a bit of surprise. “Do I want to know why they let you in there?”

“How’s it goin’? Everything all good over there? Keeping your cover intact?”

“My girlfriend hates me,” Kenshi said, deadpan, thumb riding up her leg. Sonya rolled her eyes. “We’re fine.”

There was the sound of flesh meeting flesh through the phone, Johnny’s voice muffled and unclear. Stryker’s voice picked up, eager. “Enough, Cage. Now it’s your turn, Takahashi. Spill. Kabal’s going to be there? I’m looking for flights.”

“He hasn’t been here in person that I’ve seen,” Kenshi said, shifting closer to Sonya on the bed. She lifted up the phone and set it on her bare knee, closer to him. She could feel the heat from the shower still radiating off him. “It sounds like their meetings have been very brief up to this point, and only meetings with Kabal on rare occasions. Their dealings are usually with local Black Dragon and with intermediaries. But there’s a new opportunity-“

“Sonya said.”

“Yes. And Kabal has something extra for them with this deal, something that needs to be handled in-person. They are opening a… well, an integrated resort. It’s like one of the massive complexes in Las Vegas, with casinos and hotels and entertainment, spas and pools. In Osaka. The rough implications I could get, telepathy and all, are that this branch of the yakuza have been dealing with the Black Dragon with human trafficking for the less desirable jobs. Housekeeping, kitchen staff, all the behind-the-scenes unskilled labor work. They’ve also been dealing with women trafficked for sex. But now the Black Dragon are offering something more exotic and Kabal will be there to seal the deal. It has something to do with more direct transport, as well as the nature of the women.”

With every word Kenshi said, Sonya’s muscles tightened until she reached up to rub her own jaw. She forcibly exhaled a long, slow breath.

“Yeah, I feel the same way,” Jax muttered sotto voce, earning a bark of a laugh in return. “None of this sounds good. Sounds like straight-up shit, makes me want to back out of this if it’s how this is gonna go.”

“I can’t find a flight for three days,” came Stryker’s voice, aggrieved. “Short notice bullshit.”

“I’ll see about getting you on a military flight to Okinawa,” Jax cut in. “In the mean time, you’re just gonna have to trust them to get this done.”

“You’re really sounding confident in us, asshole,” Sonya grumbled. “We’ll get it done.”

She didn’t miss the surprised look on Kenshi’s face, and she was almost certain he didn’t know he had it.

“Okay. Well, when you go out tomorrow,” Jax began, “I’ll email you the specs - here’s what you’re looking for…”

Some time later Sonya lay flat on her back in the bed. Her body was unmoving, her mind nonetheless going a hundred miles an hour. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ if Kabal was showing up. He shouldn’t recognize Kenshi - especially not dressed like a Japanese salaryman - but she wanted to be there, to take him down. She _should_ be there to take him down. She had to be there, for Stryker if no other reason.

“You’re thinking so loudly I can’t block it out,” she heard from the other side of the bed.

“What do you want me to do? Take some sedatives?”

“No.” She heard the sound of movement in the darkness, saw his dark form within the darkness move. “You don’t trust me to get him, despite what you said on the phone.”

“I don’t trust anyone but me to do it. Maybe Stryker. Maybe.” She pillowed her head on her hands, looking up at the ceiling rather than at him. “Can’t you figure out some way to get me in there?”

“It is a shame you’re not the telepath. It would make things substantially easier.”

She let out a soft bark of a laugh and turned her tired eyes to him. They were both rumpled and exhausted, but she couldn’t keep her mind still. “Yeah, well, not all of us get super powers. I’m just your standard issue GI. No telepathy or telekinesis or anything else. Just sturdy as fuck.”

“Nothing about you is standard issue. But that means, even more, that you need to sleep. We - _I_ \- am relying on you for this.” 

“I can’t sleep.” She narrowed her eyes slightly. “And I’m not in the mood to fuck, either.”

“There is an alternative.”

“Now I’m suspicious.”

He wriggled his fingers. “If you will let me into your mind, I may be able to… influence it.”

“I’m supposed to trust you to fuck around with my neurons?” She arched a brow.

“The alternative is I aggressively use telepathy and cause you excruciating pain, or I choke you until you pass out and hope that does it.”

“Such amazing charisma. No wonder you’re a hit with the ladies.” Exasperated, she made a gesture in the dark that neither one could see. “Fine. Have at. Just no fucking around too deep, okay? You need me to move or anything?”

“May I touch you?”

The polite request, the professional distance, surprises her. “Sure. No copping a feel, though.”

“I’d prefer you be awake for that.” Kenshi snorted, and shifted until he had adjusted himself until he could spread a hand on one side of her head, spanning as much of it as he could between his fingers. “I find consciousness far preferable in a partner.”

“Dick.” Sonya yawned. “I would kill you for that, but I need you for this op. I’ll kick your ass when we’re done with it.”

“You are welcome to try.”

She woke to the buzz of her alarm, hand reaching blindly to silence the annoyance. Sonya grunted and rolled over to bury her face in her pillow. Whatever Kenshi had done to her had clearly let her sleep. It didn’t mean she got enough, or that it was particularly restful. She still felt drained, and muttered a string of curses into the pillow. She heard a tired chuckle beside her, felt the shift of blankets.

“The feeling is shared.”

“Gotta get moving. Food and then electronics stores and then I have some work to do. You can sleep in - pretty sure I can negotiate things on my own, as long as Jax sent me a decent list.” She made no move to check, only turning her head sideways to not breathe in the pillow.

“I’ll go with you,” he offered, making no effort to move.

“Typical,” she muttered. “I’m taking a shower and then going to get something cheap and easy for breakfast and then start in. If we want this to be ready for tonight…” Sonya extracted herself from the bed reluctantly, stretching her fingers towards the ceiling. When she returned from her shower, Kenshi hadn’t moved a muscle. She made a rude noise, dropping the towel and beginning to pull on some of the most unobtrusive clothing she’d packed. She sat on the edge of the bed after she’d dressed, aggressively drying her hair with a towel. She opened her laptop and began to brush her hair, reading through Jax’s message about the types of equipment she’d need to buy, what she’d need to take apart.

“He’s the one into R&D, not me. I don’t understand half this.” She tugged the brush through her hair, exasperated. “I’m going to spend the whole day finding this stuff, let alone doing the build. God. Why couldn’t we have thought of this in advance?”

“I will come along,” Kenshi said again from behind her. “Two of us buying equipment should make it go faster.” She felt movement behind her, fingertips brushing some of her hair away from her neck. There was a tired touch of lips to the newly-bared skin. The familiarity startled her, the casual intimacy wholly unexpected.

“Wake your ass up, then, and get ready to go. You have until I’m done braiding this to get ready.”

“Done.” He collected a change of clothes, and she determinedly did not look at the rumpled shirt and shorts and the swaths of tattoo revealed. She read off the list into a message and sent it to his phone, He managed to return dressed and to all appearances ready before she’d put the elastic on the end of her braid.

“I’m impressed.” Sonya tied off the end of her braid, snagged her phone and slid it into a pocket. She closed the laptop and tucked it away. “Alright. I’ve got everything Jax sent, read it out for you. My goal is to get this done as fast as possible and then get back here.”

“Understood.”

They travelled quietly, Sonya virtually inhaling her first cup of coffee and growing more civil as the caffeine took effect. They separated as they entered the electronics district. There were offices large and small, ramshackle things that made her think of sleazy shops out of a bad movie, and brightly-lit establishments that looked like they would stock everything under the sun. The first shop had nothing on Jax’s list, and she growled with annoyance as she left. This was not how she wanted her day. The second shop she entered solved her problems fairly neatly, having small GPS trackers available. They were large - larger than she would have wanted - and a quick call brought Kenshi to her.

She wasn’t sure what was said, or what was arranged, but he vanished with the proprietor and came back twenty minutes later, tapping his pocket. “Still needs a little work, but far less than otherwise. This is why you keep me around.”

“Mphm.” She snorted. “You’ve done your job. Now it’s time for me to do mine.” She spent the rest of the day sequestered in the hotel room with limited equipment, trying to further miniaturize the two small pieces of electronics. Jax was up late on his own computer, commenting on her work and instructing her. Most importantly, as far as he was concerned, he was giving her shit - as much as he could manage.

“Stryker’s pissed he has no flights. Man wants to be over there something desperate.”

“Can’t blame him.” Sonya rubbed at an eye, squinting at the chips and wires. “I’d be the same way if it was Kano.”

“You’re calling in tonight when you’re done, right?”

“Soon as we’ve got Kabal, soon as Kenshi’s in the clear, or anything of note happens.” Sonya lifted the small tracker to the laptop camera, holding it carefully between her thumb and index finger. “This thing look right?”

“Only way to find out is to make sure that it works with the tracking software. You did what I told you to do, except when you deliberately ignored me.”

“Would I do that?”

“I watched you do it, smart ass.”

That evening, Kenshi tugged on the sleeve of his suit, made a minute adjustment to nothing Sonya could see. “Do I pass muster?”

She made an equally negligible adjustment. “I don’t like you going without Sento. Or backup.”

“I don’t like going without Sento.” His frankness caught her by surprise. “If I thought there was a way, I would ask you to bring it. I’ll keep in contact as much as I can. Abandoning you for a business meeting when we should be doing other things - it would not be unexpected for me to be in fairly constant contact. Especially if you are only reluctantly letting me do this.”

“Which I am. Very fucking reluctantly.” She punctuated the last three words with pokes to the chest. “I, and my afternoon’s workshop results, are going to go walk around and get a feel for the neighborhood. You get to kill a couple of hours.”

“I could come with you.”

“We’re trying not to get me called out and watched, remember? I’m dressed as drab as I can be right now. Out of sight, out of mind. I’ll let you know where I end up settling in.”

“You won’t be out of mind. I will be checking in on you as often as I can. Be _safe_ , Sonya.” His fingers brushed over her shoulders, skimmed down her side, over her hips, feeling the plain white knit shirt and olive cotton trousers. Nothing luxurious or elegant, but workaday wear. He settled his other hand on her other hip. Her heartbeat picked up, and she very determinedly attributed it just to the pre-stakeout tension. “I will call you when we are done. Come back here, debrief, call Jax and Stryker and go over it with them.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to do it all at once?” She looked into the milky white of his eyes. “Might be easier.”

“You have a point. I want witnesses if you attempt to murder me.”

“As if you could on your best day,” she scoffed. ”And sure as shit not after some rounds of sake and whatever else you all get up to.”

His fingers closed on her and tugged her in towards him as he bent his head suddenly and kissed her. It was hard enough to redden her lips, and she leaned into it, kissing back against her better judgment. She broke it off, sure he could hear her heartbeat racing.

“Trying to jam your tongue down my throat isn’t going to get me to let you tag along.”

“Worth a shot. Be safe,” he repeated, his hands dropping from her sides, eyes still on hers.

“You too, pain in my ass. You think anything is starting to go south - _anything_ \- you get your ass out of there. Whatever fucking excuse you need. I’ve got a bad history with partners going walkabout with the Black Dragon. I want that trend to stop. Don’t fuck this up, Takahashi.”

“I do not plan on it.” He stepped back too, and it was easier to breathe again with the extra space between them. “Keep me updated.”

“You do the same.”

There was a shared working space on the second floor of the building facing the meeting place for Kenshi’s evening, and Sonya went up with time to spare. The air outside was cool with a breeze and she hated the idea of locking herself up inside again for hours, when she could be outside in the wind, but she’d have to manage. Settling herself in a window seat, she had a fine view of the road and vehicles driving along. She opened her laptop and tucked herself ostensibly into her inbox, a business traveller doing her best to keep up with work. She looked enough the part, including a pair of low heels that she loathed, and kept one eye on the street. There were lots of men in suits, even as the evening progressed, and it was hard to identify the salaryman from the gangster. She tried, making idle guesses as she sorted through her inbox. Only a few walked like fighters; she knew that careful step as well as she knew her own.

There was Kenshi - she could identify _him_ easily enough - and she thought very hard in his direction. She was almost certain she caught the pull of a smile on his mouth before it faded back to seriousness. He pulled out his phone.

“Got you.”

“Second floor, across the street.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Earning my paycheck by doing paperwork otherwise I’ll never get caught up on this. Nothing else of note. Get yourself in, and don’t take any risks.” She could see the look of feigned disbelief on his face, even from across the street, and sighed. “Unnecessary risks. Just - you know what to do. What we’re after, what’s at stake.”

“Trust me, I know.” There was a pause. “I’ll head in, and keep you up to date.”

“I’d say watch your six, but.”

“Blind jokes, at my expense.” There was a half-laugh. “I’ll get you for that.”

“All talk, no action. Go earn your paycheck. Blade out.”

“The feeling’s mutual. Talk to you later.” She frowned at the signoff, but he shouldn’t be using military terms if he’s civilian, and resigned herself to it. She watched him disappear inside the building, and turned her eyes back to the street. Another five minutes - nearly at the top of the hour - a taxi pulled up, and promptly disgorged three men in business suits. She recognized two, roughly, from the dinner and drinks. It felt like it had been days ago, with everything going on. Two she didn’t recognize, but at this distance… She’d leave it to Kenshi and his telepathy to manage identification. She had to.

The men waited outside for a few minutes, and then a sleek black car pulled up. She snapped a picture of it, hoping it was clear enough to read the license plate; she typed it out on her laptop just to be sure. One slim Black Dragon member exited from the front of the car, the syndicate’s logo emblazoned on the sleeve of his jacket. She could feel her fingernails digging into her palms with anticipation, hoping - he’d _better_ not have sent a fucking patsy to this -

Kabal stepped out from the back, and Sonya found herself on her feet without thinking. The same dark hair, long coat, and even the mask - no upgrades, no changes. Like it had become his trademark. She snarled, earning some odd looks from two businessmen nearby; she ignored them utterly. She could make the jump - yeah, it would be a pain in the ass for the fall, and the glass, but it was _so close -_

She pulled out her phone and snapped a pair of pictures instead, sending them to Stryker. Confirmation for him, at least. She knew they’d be printed and on his corkboard conspiracy-theory wall five minutes later. She watched a third Black Dragon exit, and then the entire group enter the building.

The black car drove off.

She swore again, loudly, not caring if she was overheard. All the planning, all the effort, for rented cars that didn’t stick around. She fingered the two GPS tags, the several hundred dollars in tech and wasted time, burning a hole in her pocket. If Kenshi hadn’t managed to get Kabal, had somehow fucked things up, at least the tag would have given them his drop-off location, another connection with the syndicate so they could track him. It would have given them another thread, another link. The entire justification for her involvement in this, that tenuous Black Dragon connection that would have gotten her in where she needed to be.

She’d been the one to fuck this up, and the shame flared to life in her chest, quickly replaced by seething anger. That anger was a much more comfortable, much more familiar sensation than the horror and shame of failure.

Sonya sent Stryker a follow-up message to the pictures, as hard as it was for her to do.

_Need to track this car, couldn’t get it tagged. Owner - company or private?_

The ellipses appeared moments later.

_Not sure how well connected I am in the TPD but will get on it. Related?_

_Yeah. In and out too fast for tag._

_Fuck._

_It’s out of my hands now. Will update._

All she could do was wait, and Sonya had never been particularly good with waiting when there wasn’t a fight at the end of it. Now, she had little choice.


	16. Pocket Dialing (EXP)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Explicit content in this chapter!

Sonya waited, and watched, and wished to hell she’d figured out how to get herself something stiff to drink to make the frustration easier to bear. _He_ was inside, getting to have fun. As much fun as any of this was, at any rate. The lights all flickered on along the street and it filled slowly but steadily with passersby as the neon seemed to glow brighter and brighter. She waited for a response from Stryker about the cars, but nothing came, and so she busied herself people-watching.

She was almost certain she found two lookouts, young men not in business suits but slouching in loose pants and hoodies, but their eyes and attention on people crossing in front of that particular building. Not likely to be police; they didn’t have any of the tells, from the footwear to the stances. The way cigarettes hung from their lips and the way they kept their eyes on the building, she was certain they were reporting back - or would if something was suspicious. Look inconspicuous, not worth paying attention to, and pay attention to everything.

She gave him twenty minutes before initiating the first of the Girlfriend Calls. They’d prearranged it - she would record a message and send the audio file so he didn’t have to risk a misbehaving screen reader, and he’d send a response back. She pitched her voice higher and began speaking. “I couldn’t make the date with my friends. They came and went too fast. So I’m stuck and bored and that’s never good. Let me know how long you’re gonna be or I’m gonna go find something to do.”

Five minutes later, her phone rang and she pressed it close to her ear. It was muffled, a conversation bouncing back and forth in Japanese. She pressed mute quickly, popping in an earpiece and turning it on. Quick chatter, casual and full of local dialect - nothing she could parse. Had Kenshi actually fucking pocket dialed her?

“And what’s the verdict, then?”

Kabal’s voice cutting in, smooth but a little off, like it was coming through a radio or a synthesizer. English, polite and businesslike, but always that level of amusement, like you were the butt of a joke and he just hadn’t made it yet. He was muffled - likely because of Kenshi’s phone being in a pocket - but recognizable enough. Her heart skipped a beat, began typing out a message to Stryker, even as she waited for anything to come back about the cars.

“We will do it. A permanent site, with the necessary security.” The oyabun’s voice, each word carefully considered English. “With certain conditions.”

“Wouldn’t expect it any other way. What’s the family got to offer us? Remembering, of course,” and Kabal’s voice took on some humor, “that the Black Dragon Society is part of the big family. And my boss is one of yours. Expecting a nice family arrangement.”

Her fingers tightened on the edge of the table, white-knuckled at the implication of Kano. Dangling him out there without naming names. She licked her lips, eyes on the building across the street.

“A site for operations in a casino in Osaka is surely worth a fair amount. After all, we share the risks with such an arrangement. You will have a portal, yes - but we will be the ones responsible for hiding it, for managing the supplies. But with international visitors, touring entertainers…” the oyabun’s voice took on a confident, sly tone. “You will have easy mobility for your goods.”

“Sounds pretty reasonable.” She could imagine the cocky tilt of his shoulders, and her fingers ached to close around his throat, to rip off his mask. “We just want to make everyone rich. What the Black Dragon has to offer, only we can provide.”

“Not all of it. Guns, and women - those we can handle on our own. The Black Dragon only makes it easier.” There was a dry laugh and a bit of a cough, and the crunch of something. “What concerns us is the degree of risk. The Black Dragon are very public, and often without the discretion so critical to the ninkyo dantai.” Those words Sonya recognized - _chivalrous organization_. Hah. Kabal and Kano, chivalrous? Bullshit. “What security will we have - what recourse - should there be problems?”

“Now, I’ll need to check on that, but I’m pretty sure if anyone fucks things up for you, you’ve got the right to do to them what you’d do to your own. Same as us.” Kabal’s voice was easy. “Boxes, crates, anything like that - toss them back through the portal. Part of this arrangement is you have a nice secure safe space for us, and we’re helping take care of that security.” He paused. “Speaking of - what about those beam emitters? Your people get ahold of them yet?”

“There was a problem on the American end,” the oyabun said with a bit of disappointment, “which we have acquired a new member of the family to rectify.”

“How about that. Thought that was a new face.”

“You have the advantage on me,” came Kenshi’s voice as the line went dead.

Sonya’s hands went white-knuckled again on the table. She hoped to hell that was intentional; there was no sign of any activity on the inside of the other building, or on its exterior. He was fine.

Out came some of the men in suits she’d seen before, followed moments later by two Black Dragon. The doors gaped wide a third time, disgorging the senior Takahashi-gumi member.

Kabal and Kenshi were nowhere to be seen.

If something had gone wrong -

If he’d betrayed her, and Jax, and Stryker -

If he’d been lying all along -

She wanted to close her eyes, but she might miss something if she did. She glanced down at her phone, making sure she hadn’t overlooked any messages. No messages since the last abrupt end of his pocket dialing. She thumbed open the app to record a message once more.

“Hey, _honey_.” Her voice was painfully saccharine, even to her ears. “I’m about to give up hope of seeing you alive again and go file a police report. I’m tired of waiting all alone for you, this isn’t what you promised me. I swear if you don’t call me back in the next ten minutes, I’m going to call my brother and then you’ll _really_ be sorry.”

She hoped to hell he’d get the message - and get the point. She rubbed her jaw and wiggled her tongue and took another drink, eyes still on the doorway. Her phone buzzed with an incoming call.

“I’ll just be five or ten more minutes, sweetheart. Finishing up a last couple of things, making some new friends.” Kenshi’s voice was relaxed and easy, no hidden tightness she could pick up. What the fuck had they been getting up to? And why the _fuck_ was he calling her pet names? “I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I know this didn’t go the way we planned, but it’s going to be worth it in the long run. If you’re not back at the room now - I know you said you might go out - I’ll meet you back there within the hour.” There was another voice in the background - Kabal - but she couldn’t pick out the words. Kenshi made a slightly stilted laugh. “Yeah, voicemail’s easiest. She’s tightly wound, and it’s her first trip out. Can’t blame her for being upset I’m doing business - especially business I swore I was out of - when it’s supposed to be time for her.”

“Got a partner, like that.” The other voice was clearer now. “If it’s not goin’ the way it’s supposed to be, he gets pretty pissed off. Better have a damn good reason.”

“Yeah, she’s a lot like that.”

Had he just compared her to Kano? Sonya nearly shot out of her chair to stalk her way in and choke him.

“Don’t envy you, then. How’s she gonna handle-” Kabal’s voice dropped, muffled for a few moments. “—don’t get shit for that, you should be fine. Need to get the shipment ready, get things arranged. Good luck with your girl. You need a little relaxation when you’re done, sounds like Osaka’s got a room with your name on it. Bring her, or don’t, and we’ll get someone in for you. You’ve got my number, right?”

“I don’t. Here-” And then the call was ended, and Sonya’s vision went red.

He hadn’t gone over, but the fucker was insinuating himself far better than she’d hoped, far more than she wanted. He was supposed to be taking Kabal down. Not exchanging phone numbers.

And what the hell had he done that she was going to give him shit for?

Five minutes later Kabal emerged, and then Kenshi, both of them looking far too chummy for her tastes. There was an offer of some kind, a refusal by the way Kenshi shook his head, a mimed phone call. Kabal stepped into a car that pulled up on the corner - a different set of plates that she hurriedly wrote down, swearing all the while. She shot off a final email to Stryker and Jax that the meet was done and everyone intact as far as she could tell, and packed her gear up and headed down to meet Kenshi. He’d take the subway for two stops and get off, and they’d meet on the platform and continue from there together, having either lost or identified any tails.

He was waiting for her when she stepped off her own train, and she closed the space to him quickly.

“Not even a ‘I’m fine’? I needed a damn update, Kenshi - wait. What the fuck happened to _you_?”

There were scratches along one side of his face, a cut, bruising coming up around one eye. It looked like he’d been pinned to a wall and someone had gone to town on him.

“A little friendly sparring,” he hissed as she began to touch his face. “Can this this wait?”

“We’re stopping at a pharmacy or whatever it is here and I’m getting stuff to clean you up. You had a little friendly sparring and I didn’t get an invitation?”

“It was supposed to be _friendly_ ,” he stressed, pulling one of her hands away from him. “If you were involved, there would have been a body count. Neither of us left too injured. Let’s get back to the hotel and you can do this there, instead of this very public place.”

Within half an hour, Sonya had her laptop set up and a video call going to Jax, with Stryker hovering close behind him. Sonya was recounting her end of things while she did basic first aid on Kenshi’s injuries. He’d been right - nothing major, but a split lip and a swollen eye, cuts on his cheekbones and abrasions and bruises on his knuckles.

“So I didn’t get the cars, and that’s on me. Even if I’d been outside where they could have spotted me, there was no way I could have. That was a drop-and-go, and I didn’t have a back up in place for that.” Her hands cupped Kenshi’s face, staring into his blind eyes to see if there was any hope to check for a concussion; the irises and pupils were almost indistinguishable from his corneas, white and white and white even with a penlight to hand. “And I sent all that off, so we have to try to identify where they came from, maybe track down the drivers, go from there. Find out where he got picked up and dropped off, backtrace his movements.”

“And Takahashi, once you split…?”

“The core is that the Black Dragons are playing their yakuza membership card and getting in on this integrated resort in Osaka. It will serve as a solid enough base for them to operate out of, between the regular traffic of domestic and international visitors, the traveling entertainers, and the sheer number of staff needed.” Kenshi took an ice pack from Sonya and held it to his face. “It sounds like they’ll be finding a way to set up a permanent, or semi-permanent, portal on the site.”

“So an easy way to get drugs, cash, guns, women, you name it, into - or out of - Japan,” Stryker said with gritted teeth.

“Precisely,” Kenshi’s voice held an almost clinical detachment. “Needless to say, we’re heading down there next.”

“Give it a couple days before you hop on a train or something.” Jax drummed his fingers on the edge of the desk, and then curled around a coffee mug.

“Get too deep too fast, they’ll get suspicious.” Stryker banged a hand on the edge of Jax’s desk, earning a death glare from the other man. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. If it’s Kabal, I need to be there.”

“We don’t even know if he’s still in the country,” Sonya said seriously. “Get on those plates, keep riding your contacts, and Fight Club guy over here can probably find out where he is, if he’s still on. They even exchanged phone numbers,” she added with acid sweetness, “so maybe Kenshi can schedule a date.”

“I’ll have Sonya read off the number. And you have a point. If we go down too quickly, get embroiled in this - I am fairly certain my girlfriend would be more than a little unhappy. But we have an invitation.”

“And we need to check it out. There are lives at stake, damn it.” Sonya crossed her arms, pulling over a chair and sitting close to Kenshi, both of them in the video screen. She felt one of his hands brush her back, out of sight of the camera.

“Cover,” Jax replied firmly. “We’ll follow up on this, but you have to keep your cover intact to get in there. Girl, you aren’t gonna save any lives if you’re Take a day, let me get the intel on this, get yourselves tickets or whatever it is down to Osaka. Not the fucking presidential suite or whatever it is,” he added, shaking a finger at the screen. “Budget doesn’t swing to that no matter how much you’re busting your asses. But you gotta pay for it. Taking favors from the people you’re investigating ain’t gonna fly. Even when we all know you want to kill ‘em.”

“This is a threat to Earthrealm now,” Sonya pointed out as she leaned forward. She was hyperconscious of Kenshi’s hand on her back, even though it only brushed back and forth, almost mindless. She wasn’t sure if it was meant to soothe her, or some form of contact he craved. “We going to loop Raiden and Fujin into this? I think they need to be informed as a courtesy, even if we don’t ask them to get involved.”

“You got them on speed dial?”

“Raiden left something for me, it’s in my junk drawer in my desk.”

“The one with the chocolate?” Jax grinned.

“So _you_ are the fucking reason my stash disappears and gets replaced with crap.” She feigned reaching through the screen to choke him. “There’s a little… don’t know what you’d call it, a little metal plate, with a symbol on it. Should be able to get him with that. Don’t claim to understand how it works, but it does.”

“Copy. You doing all right, Sonya? Be honest.”

“This fucking sucks, we’re behind the eight-ball the entire time. I want to go in guns blazing and destroy everybody. I hate this cover bullshit.” She sighed, leaning back. “Can we please get back to the shooting people part? I don’t mind some of the paperwork, but this whole thing… we’re hitting the point that it’s ridiculous. I’m not meant for undercover work where I’m useless. Kenshi gets all the credit here - we’re wasting him and not using him for infiltration as much as we should be… I need to get in, get my hands dirty.”

“Soon,” Jax promised, and she gave him a wry, almost bitter laugh.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I have a flight,” Stryker promised, “or any of this follow-up on Kabal. And get me that number.”

“Yeah. Where is it?” Sonya nudged Kenshi with her knee.

“Jacket pocket.”

Sonya pulled out a slip of paper, looking at it, frowning.

“Something wrong?”

“It’s numbers. New York City digits from the look of it.”

“Gimme. Box of bagels for you in it.”

“Asshole,” she said, “I’d give them to you anyway.” And she read them off, watching Stryker’s eyes narrow as she did. “What’s up?”

“I don’t know if you got made, Kenshi, or he’s just being an asshole. Probably the last one.”

“Why?”

“That’s just a few digits off from his old number. We know it was disconnected - I had that fucking thing tapped six ways to Sunday - but between phone number recycling and everything…” Stryker trailed off. “Find out if he’s still in-country. I’ll take it from there. I’m out, I’m going to go start working on this shit.”

“You take care of yourself, Sonya. Any way I can get ten with Takahashi without you looming over his shoulder?” Jax met her eyes through the camera, or tried to - video conferencing remained awkward.

“Yeah. I’ll go hit the convenience store around the corner for something to eat. I’ll let you interrogate him in peace.”

She left, stopping instead at a place that did takeaway curry and returning with two plates of the peculiar Japanese interpretation she’d been curious about. She knocked firmly on the room door, giving them the courtesy of wrapping up the call.

She didn’t expect the door to glow blue, and barely open. Sonya pushed it open quietly, enough to hear the conversation.

“…with all due respect, that’s none of your business. Sir.” Kenshi was grinding the words out carefully. “I know she’s your friend but I am not intruding on her privacy to answer that.”

“You start actually trying to fuck my sister, and I catch wind of it, and we will see if that telekinesis can take my arms apart faster than I can snap your neck.”

That _asshole_ , and for a moment Sonya wasn’t sure which one she was thinking of. She stepped in, and gently nudged it shut.

“It is her decision, not yours.”

“She’s my family, you wiseass.”

“Jax, with all due respect - she’s _here_ , and you’re _there._ I am far more concerned about Sonya who will be back any minute, than what you claim you’ll do a thousand miles away. I’m fine working with her, and I have no doubt she will tell you if she has issues with me. You’ll find out after she’s disposed of the body.”

“You tell her-“

“She’s at the door. You can tell her yourself.”

“Nah. Just tell her I said not to fuck it up. Briggs out.”

Sonya held the bag of curry in her hands, the long necks of two beers in the other, and set them on the table. She confirmed the call had disconnected and put away her laptop before turning to Kenshi.

“He giving you the don’t step over the line lecture?”

“He was.” Kenshi gave a mirthless smile.

“There’s a betting pool on. Vera keeps angling for me to send her photographic proof so she can win.”

“Is that… chicken katsu curry?” His nostrils flared, and she laughed.

“Chicken and pork. I wanted to try both. Gonna be a problem?”

“No, as long as you’re willing to go get your own.”

“I got two orders. Slow your roll. We can split them. You going to be able to eat, with that jaw of yours?” She reached up, far gentler than before, and ran a finger along the bruises on his face, across the slowly coming in stubble of a beard. “You should have said something. Warned me. The phone went dead, and I had no idea what the hell was going on. I wanted to run the fuck in there and find out what was happening.”

“Kabal said something about wanting to see what the new guy was made of, and I’m not important enough yet to them to care. If I won, it would be status; if I lost, well, I was new and my position is still loose. Without Sento, I did tolerably well - Kabal was unarmed as well,” he added quickly. She looked at the swelling over his eye, the cuts and abrasions on his face, and shook her head.

“You could have killed him.”

“I could have, and sent this entire operation down in flames. I am good, Sonya, but not good enough to take a roomful of yakuza and Black Dragon without Sento. At least, not without warning you.” He chuckled, and then dared a kiss with an almost startling casual movement. He caught her by surprise and pulled her in against him, his hands on her hips. She opened her mouth to him almost immediately. There was the faint tang of blood from his lip, and a surprising amount of hunger in the contact - and not just from her.

He slid the blouse off her without breaking the kiss for more than a hurried gulp of air, a feat she appreciated in the more rational part of her brain. His fingers slid down her arm, a trail of warmth on her skin as she divested him of his own tie and shirt, pressing softly on a handful of places. He shuddered at a few of them - more blows, then, bruises she’d need to be mindful of.

“Gave as good as I got,” he said when they came up for air again, his teeth finding her earlobe and tugging on it gently, the sensation making heat bloom low in her body.

“Think you’re up for it again?”

“A fistfight? No, I’m not going to destroy a hotel room,” Kenshi snorted. “Jax said I ought to indulge you, but I do not think he meant to the degree of room damage.” She pushed on his chest, hand splayed out over a flower. The contrasts still threw her; she’d never met a man who would cover himself in a floral arrangement. Demons, devils, knights and warriors, sure - even names of girlfriends, or pin-ups, skulls and dragons. But never flowers. She shook her head to clear the fog of thoughts away.

“Indulge me, huh?” She put her hands on her hips.

“I think he more meant your obsessions,” he answered. “Not sleeping with you.”

“Well, he’s technically my boss, and he said you should indulge me, so who am I to argue?” His fingertips brushed across her lips as she spoke, thumb resting on the corner of her mouth. “I just - fuck, Kenshi, I haven’t gotten to fight in days. I’m wound up tight as a spring. Everything in there, I was fucking _useless_. I need…”

“And you don’t call last night’s argument a fight?” He held up a hand. “Joking, Sonya. I know that wasn’t what you wanted. I have been there, feeling like I add nothing to an operation. Dead weight.” There was a twist of a smile, a little pained as it pulled at sore muscles. “But you are not useless, and anyone who would think it is a fool.”

“Not sure how I feel about being called an idiot. It’s also not the best way to get yourself laid, for the record.”

“Then I’ll stop talking.” He seized her in his arms, earning a startled laugh, and she felt the low and fuzzy presence tickle her mind that meant he was brushing across her mind, doing something with telepathy. It was gone a moment later, and his grip on her eased enough for him to draw her to the bed, curry and beer forgotten. They worked each other naked in shared motions, a moment of amusement as he fumbled at series of buttons and hooks on her pants until she took pity on them and shimmed out of them.

“I hate those, for the record,” he muttered into her collarbone as she lifted her hips into the air to free the pants. She laughed once as she worked him naked in turn, rolling onto her side to admire him again. Even battered and bruised as he was, she wanted him.

“Duly noted.” She wrapped a hand around his cock, and he gathered her up to him, burying his lips in her hair and shuddering at her touches. Their mouths slid together again and she nipped at his lower lip, drew it into her mouth for a moment, tentatively. He thrust into the ring of her hand and she tightened her grasp. He shuddered and let out a wordless sound borne of need.

They tangled together, her hand stroking him while he moved one hand between her thighs, dipping a finger into her. Gasps and sighs and moans of pleasure, drawn from both of them, filled the room. She dug her fingertips into his shoulders while a moan worked its way free of her lips. She kissed him again with increased hunger, sucking on his tongue and nipping gently at his lips with her teeth. He let out another moan, baring his neck for her. She lapped at his throat, tugged lightly at skin, and her legs fell open shamelessly easily for him as one finger became two and his thumb worked circles around her clit.She twisted, driving her hips up against his hand. He made a sound of surprise, swore softly in Japanese, the words falling easier from his lips now. He wriggled his fingers and pumped them in and out of her until she was slick and almost trembling with need. She was ready to roll him onto his back and take her release.

The sense of need abated as he moved between her thighs, but the hunger only grew as he waited a moment - steeling himself, giving her a last-minute out, she neither knew nor cared. He pushed inside her, inch by inch with a quiet groan, hanging his head as if he’d just run a mile. The tension knotted deep inside her began to loosen as he settled in her to the base, and she spared a moment - just a moment - to memorize the look of this before she rolled her hips, urging him on.

The hunger grew and the tightness in her body took on a different form as he pressed her down into the mattress with every movement. She rocked against him, reaching up with her hands to brush against the hard nubs of his nipples, pushing up and biting lightly at one of them. His hands danced over her skin, trailing down her arms, cradling the backs of her thighs and spreading across her shoulders and hips, as if reassuring himself of her presence.

“Fuck, Kenshi…“ she said in an almost shamefully breathy voice. That would be just her luck to top off tonight - miss getting off, but he did. “Don’t stop.”

“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” he responded, drawing a deep breath.She let out a frustrated moan and bit down hard on her lip, desperately chasing an orgasm that refused to be caught. It was a mirage - she’d think she was close, but her body refused to let her drop over the edge. She made another frustrated growl, biting down on her lower lip so hard she could taste blood. Just that kind of night.

The flat of his thumb pressed against her, almost awkward between their legs, and she let out a low cry. It seemed to spur him on, the sound of skin on skin mingling with their panting breaths. He shifted his position, just enough to hit her at a different angle, and new nerves blazed with pleasure as he worked her to the point she’d hit so many times, and then - _thank fucking gods_ \- over it. Pleasure crashed through her, muscles pulsing taut around him, and his name spilled off her lips. He seemed to teeter on the edge, just as she had, and she shifted beneath him one more time, his hands grasping her thighs and angling her just _so_ , and then it seemed a matter of moments until his body bowed back, driving hard into her and losing himself.

She held him to her in a pleasantly satiated haze, tugging his head down to her chest, threading her hand through his hair with one hand while the other brushed idly up and down his back like an overgrown cat, and she was ready to fall asleep when her stomach let out an aggrieved rumble.

“Not all of you was satisfied, it seems,” he said, muffled against her chest. She felt the broad grin on his face against her skin.

“Lukewarm beer and curry it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple quick references:
> 
> https://www.britannica.com/topic/yakuza - pretty straightforward and comprehensive overview of the topic.  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Dragon_Society - Seriously, you can't make this stuff up! =) 
> 
> And if you want to get a hold of me outside comments: [Here's my card!](dei2dei.carrd.co)


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